


Werewolves and Magic and Dreams, Oh My!

by glitterfics



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: First Time, M/M, Marauders' Era, NaNoWriMo, Romance, Werewolves
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-05-23
Updated: 2011-05-23
Packaged: 2017-10-19 17:33:46
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 14
Words: 50,744
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/203381
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/glitterfics/pseuds/glitterfics
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The three Marauders are not friends with their other roommate. They think he's quiet and weird and they are uncomfortable around him, especially when they discover he's a werewolf. But then the dreams start and everything changes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This was my Nano '11 effort.
> 
> I ticked the warning for underage sex as it differs from country to country, but really by the time that stuff rolls around they are 16 yrs old in a country where the AoC is 16.
> 
> Thanks to lazydaisyjax for the beta <3
> 
> Jo owns all, I own nothing.

Remus Lupin groaned as the bright sunlight filtered through his closed eyelids. He pulled one of his pillows from beneath his head and dropped it on his face, unwilling to wake up yet. He could hear the distant noises of breakfast preparation and his mother’s soft humming as she worked. Usually sounds that soothed him and made him smile but this time he tried to block it all out, instead reaching out with his mind to try and recapture the dream he’d been having.

He couldn’t remember much – snatches of being outside, trees, darkness – all things he’d dreamed about before but the difference this time was the feelings the dream evoked. There was no terror of the darkness and the monster that chased him through the trees, snarling with sharp fangs that gleamed in the moonlight. Instead there was...contentment. A feeling of rightness and ‘home’. But no matter how hard he tried, Remus couldn’t recall any more details. It was frustrating the hell out of him, especially as he had the niggling feeling that the dream was important somehow.

There was a quiet knock at the bedroom door. “Remus, love, are you awake? Breakfast’s almost ready...” Remus’ mother called.

Remus gave a big sigh and removed the pillow covering his head. “Okay, mum. I’ll be there in a little bit.”

Hauling himself out of bed, he padded to the bathroom down the hall and ten minutes later appeared, fully dressed, in the sunny kitchen. His dad was already there, frowning slightly at some article he was reading in the Daily Prophet while he absentmindedly dunked a piece of toast into his coffee instead of the intended egg.

Chuckling fondly at the familiar scene, Remus removed the toast from his father’s hand before he could eat it. John Lupin looked up, blinking in surprise for a moment before he took in the soggy piece of food in Remus’ hand and the crumbs floating in his mug.

“Ah! Thanks, son. Got a bit distracted there.”

Still smiling, Remus walked over to the bin, his smile growing as he saw his mother rolling her eyes at him. The expression on her face was a mixture of exasperation and her own amusement at her husband’s behaviour.

“It’s just that this so-called reporter is claiming that Cecilia Poultice’s book on restorative herbs is full of misinformation and fanciful ideas,” continued Remus’ father rather obliviously, “Whereas any fool can tell that her theories on the properties of _lichen_ alone could lead to a breakthrough in potions to combat heart disease.”

Remus took his place at the table and began tucking into his food. He knew better than to interrupt his father when he got started on a good rant. He also knew that his father, as the owner of a second hand book shop, was usually right about this sort of thing. He may be scatterbrained about everyday activities, but he knew books and usually Remus was more than happy to listen to him. This morning though, Remus just let it all wash over him as he thought back to his previous night’s sleep.

He jumped as he felt a hand brushing his hair out of his eyes and looked up to see his mother peering at him in concern. “Are you alright, Remus?” she asked quietly, as his dad still rambled on in the background about idiot reporters, “You seem a little out of sorts this morning.”

“I’m fine, mum.” He smiled to reassure her. “I just had a bit of a weird dream, that’s all.”

At that, his father did stop talking. His hands dropping from where they had been making some sort of gesture in the air, “The nightmares again?” he asked Remus worriedly.

Remus shook his head. He’d often woken up from one of the bad ones to find one of his parents sitting next to him on the bed, stroking his sweat soaked hair as the dying sound of a scream echoed around the tiny cottage. But he hadn’t had a nightmare that bad in years, at least he didn’t think so. His dorm-mates at school had never mentioned anything and he was pretty sure that they’d have told him if he’d woken them up by screaming in his sleep. They weren’t exactly subtle about...well, anything really.

“No, it wasn’t anything bad. I don’t think it was anyway. It’s all kind of hazy now,” Remus told them, “It’s just...have you ever had a dream that you felt that you should remember? That you thought might mean something?”

Now it was his father’s turn to roll his eyes, although his face looked relieved. “Oh Merlin! You had me worried there,” he laughed, “but it’s just that Divination nonsense they’re teaching you isn’t it? Dreams meaning something. I told you that that subject was all poppycock, son. I know it’s an easy OWL but don’t take it seriously.”

Remus smiled weakly. “You’re probably right. I’m just reading too much into it.”

****

The heir to the Most Ancient and Noble House of Black was in a foul mood.

He’d had a shitty Christmas what with his mother dragging him to boring party after boring party trying to find a girl suitable for him to marry. It didn’t matter that Sirius didn’t _like_ any of the stupid bints his mother hunted down like a (pure) bloodhound. If he complained his mother would just smack him across the back of the head and tell him how very much she detested his father but she still married him and had his ungrateful children because that was her duty. Then she’d tell him that it was Sirius’ duty to do the same and he should keep his mouth shut about such nonsense as love or compatibility as they had no place in a proper marriage.

He had counted the days until he would be back at school but, now he was actually back there, things weren’t faring much better. It had started earlier that day on the Hogwarts Express when James had laughed hysterically at the sight of the new haircut his mother had inflicted on Sirius during the holidays.

Then there had been all the glares and muttering from the other students in his house about the new winter robes he’d gotten for Christmas with their very prominent Black family crest on the front. He was a fourth year for crying out loud. Surely the other Gryffindors had figured out by now that he wasn’t like the rest of his family but apparently it had taken one look at that stupid crest to undo all his hard work.

So he was already in something of a bad mood when, still chortling like an idiot, Potter ignored the warning growl Sirius was directing at him and asked him if his mother had made him cut his hair like that because she’d always wanted a daughter. Therefore he wasn’t really to blame for the violent shove he’d given James and it wasn’t as if he’d _purposely_ made him land on his knees in front of Lily Evans, with his face in her lap. And it _definitely_ hadn’t been his fault that the very red-faced Evans had slapped James across the face and told him that if he ever went near her again she would cut his balls off and feed them to the Giant Squid.

Now here he was his first night back in the place that usually made him feel happy and free from his family’s poisonous clutches and he was unable to sleep because everything had been messed up. His best friend wasn’t talking to him, Peter had followed James’ lead and, apart from a few apologetic glances, pretended Sirius wasn’t in the room and the rest of the house were looking at him as if he was going to start cursing about mudbloods any second. It just wasn’t fair.

The only person that had been even halfway decent to him so far was Weirdo Lupin, who’d smiled and wished him a Happy New Year before he stuck his nose back in whatever book he was reading.

Sirius sighed loudly, punched his pillow as he tried to find a more comfortable position and wished that he could turn his brain off enough to fall asleep. Maybe he could have that dream he’d had a couple of weeks earlier. The one that had made him feel safe and contented, despite the lingering pain from his mother’s quick temper and even quicker wand. The one he vaguely thought might be about a wolf.

As soon as he thought the word ‘wolf’ Sirius’ eyes involuntarily drifted in the direction of Lupin’s bed and he wondered, not for the first time, if they should’ve made more of an effort to befriend the boy once they had figured out what was really wrong with him every month. But as James had pointed out, he was just so quiet and odd and they had nothing in common. He was always studying or curled up with a book instead of joining in with anything. If it hadn’t been for the horrible cuts and bruises that appeared on him every so often and the awful excuses given for them, they’d have probably forgotten he was there.

At first they’d thought he was getting bullied, probably by some Slytherins, but after following him about for a while in the hopes of putting a stop to it, they saw no signs of that being the problem. Then Peter had randomly noticed that it was always a full moon when Remus was away for the night. After that it was a simple matter of running across a chapter on werewolves while bored and looking for gruesome pictures in the library books to entertain them. Mystery solved.

Once they had figured it all out they didn’t need to pay attention to their dorm-mate anymore. He obviously didn’t want them to know, so they didn’t tell him that they did. He went back to being weird and uninteresting and they got back to obsessing about quidditch matches and hexing Slytherins. But sometimes, when Lupin was looking particularly rough after a full moon, Sirius got the disconcerting feeling that the reason that they hadn’t pushed things and hadn’t told him that they knew, was actually because they were so uncomfortable around him once they _did_ know. So instead they just ignored him.

Sirius thought about it now though. He thought about the drawings they’d seen in that library book and tried to reconcile the horrifying and evil-looking beast with his pale, slight dorm-mate. He gave an involuntary shiver as he finally drifted off into a sleep filled with trees, darkness and a wolf that made him feel safe and comforted instead of shivery and scared.

****

The thing about the day of the transformation that Remus really disliked, apart from the pain of transformation itself and the dread over how bad a shape he was going to be in come morning, was his excess energy and complete inability to concentrate on anything. The lessons dragged on endlessly and he always left feeling that it was pointless him even attending them for all the information he’d taken in. He couldn’t even escape into his normal refuge of reading a good book because, more often than not, he’d reach the end of a page and realise that he hadn’t taken in a single word.

A couple of times he’d tried watching his three dorm-mates plotting whatever new scheme they’d come up with to torture the Slytherins, but he’d gotten the distinct impression that his silent observation was unnerving them and they’d be a lot happier if he wasn’t in the room.

All of that had led to him showing up to the shack hours before he needed to. He had investigated every nook and cranny, every crack in the wooden floors and every claw mark in the walls and doors until the ache in his bones that signalled the approaching moonrise grew so bad that all he could do was flop on the dusty bed in the corner and stare up at the completely uninteresting ceiling. Even then his mind wouldn’t stay still, jumping from subject to subject in a haphazard manner. From the potions homework he needed to work on, to the latest letter from his mum, to the utter redundancy of the word ‘dictionary’ being in the dictionary and to _that_ dream.

He’d had the dream again on the first night he got back to school and it had been very welcome. Between the always jarring change from being completely himself at home into the secretive, invisible boy he had to be at school and heavy tension in the dorm created by one of Potter and Black’s infamous fallings out, he had been only too happy to wrap himself up in the contentment that dream evoked. Plus this time he’d been able to remember a little more of it. Mainly that in the dream he’d been in wolf form - which wasn’t as disconcerting as he would’ve thought and was infinitely better than dreaming of being chased by a wolf - and that there had been someone with him. He couldn’t quite picture the person but he had that feeling again that it was important he remember. Sometimes, when he really concentrated, it felt like he could almost see who it was but then the image would move out of his reach again.

It was infuriating really, Remus thought as he screwed his eyes shut in yet another attempt. But this time when he felt like he was close to picturing the elusive someone, a sudden shooting pain up his spine stopped him. The moon had risen and pretty soon Remus’ entire body was arched off the bed as fire swept through him and obliterated all thought from his head right up until the point where his bones had already cracked and reformed and his body had sprouted long fur.

In the last moments before the human part of him had relinquished its hold on the mind, the picture cleared and Remus could see the person that had been in his dreams. Then _‘It was Black?’_ became _‘mine, find, bite, pack’_ and the wolf starting hurling itself at the walls of the room, unmindful of the cuts and shattering of bones it was causing itself. It just had to get to the human.

  
_mine, find, bite, pack_   


****

“...and then she said she would rather eat pickled murtlap tentacles than go to Hogsmeade with me, so I suggested that she could eat _my_ tentacle instead and that’s when she turned my hair pink and stormed off.”

Sirius chuckled as James explained the reason his hair was currently fuchsia coloured while they climbed the stairs to their dorm-room. “At least she only changed the colour of your hair this time.”

“Exactly!” James exclaimed excitedly, pushing open the door. “She’s softening towards me, I know it!”

“Hey, James, do you know where I put that quill we charmed to write in...” Peter broke off talking as he raised his head from the trunk he was searching in and got a good look at James’ hair. “Evans?”

“Evans.” Sirius confirmed as James threw himself onto his bed with a happy sigh, “And the quill’s under your bed. Remember?”

Peter’s confused expression clearly showed that he _didn’t_ remember, but he just shrugged it off and crawled under the bed sending a “Thanks mate” back over his shoulder.

Sirius was feeling exhausted after cleaning about a hundred trophies during his latest detention, so he changed for bed and started to pull his curtains closed. He paused briefly to frown at Lupin’s perfectly made but empty bed and turned his head slightly to see James doing the same thing. They caught each other’s eye for a long moment before they both deliberately turned away. Then Sirius bid the other two boys goodnight, climbed into bed and fell asleep almost immediately.

He found himself standing in the Gryffindor common room but everything was gray and dusty. The portraits were all completely blank and it looked as though no-one had been in the room for years. Sirius pulled his robe more tightly around him and moved to investigate further before a howl in the distance made him freeze. He knew that noise; it was a wolf. It was _his_ wolf.

Instinctively Sirius moved towards the sound, climbing out of the portrait hole and into the dark corridor beyond. He knew that it was in the middle of the night and there were no torches lit but he could still see everything clearly. He glanced up and saw that the ceiling was gone, despite there being several floors above him, and the moon was full and bright enough to light his way.

He started towards the staircase but stopped as his bare feet stepped on something wet. He crouched down and realised that he was standing in a puddle of blood. He could see drag marks leading out of the puddle and down the stairs. The distant howl sounded again but this time the howl was one of pain and Sirius just knew that the blood had come from the wolf. It was hurt and needed him.

Sirius ran down the stairs following the bloody marks down several flights before a suit of armour suddenly came to life and jumped in front of him brandishing its sword. Sirius reached back for his wand but cursed as he discovered he didn’t have it with him. The sword swung out towards his head and Sirius managed to duck just in time. Before the suit of armour could pull back for another go Sirius pushed himself forward and grabbed it’s legs, toppling them both over and causing the strange attacker to fall to pieces from the force of impact against the ground.

After lying on the stone floor for several moments, catching his breath, Sirius pulled himself to his feet and searched the ground. The drag marks had stopped and there was no indication of what direction he should head in next. Panic that he wouldn’t make it to the wolf on time began to build in his chest and he blindly continued down the stairs, hoping that he was right. As he reached the castle’s entrance way another howl sounded. It had definitely come from outside so Sirius pushed open the heavy wooden doors and ran out onto the grounds.

It was brighter out there than in the school, and he was able to pick up a trail of blood drops and flattened patches of grass; as if the wolf had collapsed every few feet. Tears were streaming down Sirius’ face as he sprinted across the lawns. What if he wasn’t fast enough? What if the animal was too badly hurt for him to heal? Sirius couldn’t lose him. The wolf kept him safe.

Another mournful howl filled the night and Sirius’ head whipped in the direction it came from. The Forbidden Forest. It was in the forest. He put on an extra burst of speed and...everything went dark as he fell.


	2. Chapter 2

The first thing that Remus became aware of was a searing pain in his side. He gasped and tried to clutch the area but his hands were caught in a firm grip.

“Easy, Remus, You’ve had a rough night.” Poppy Pomfrey’s usually calm voice sounded a little strained and, when Remus opened his eyes, he could see the lines of worry on her face.

He only had a brief time to register that it was Professor Dumbledore that had hold of his hands before the man let go and helped Remus raise his head high enough to drink the potion Madam Pomfrey was holding to his lips. He sighed in relief as the pain potion immediately started to work, spreading warmth through his body and numbing everything in its wake.

In what the other students would’ve probably seen as an uncharacteristic gesture, Madam Pomfrey brushed Remus’ hair off his forehead and murmured, “You poor boy.”

Then turning to the headmaster she gave him a much sterner look. “You can talk to him for five minutes, but no upsetting him and if he falls asleep let him be. He needs his rest.”

Dumbledore nodded his agreement and waited until the nurse had left the curtained area before pulling a couple of chocolate frogs out of his pocket and handing one to a very confused Remus. “I have long held the belief that chocolate has great restorative properties and must always be eaten when one is feeling unwell.”

The old man’s eyes twinkled with mischief and he took a bite out of his own chocolate frog and Remus smiled back at him, filing that statement away for future reference. His mother had worshipped Albus Dumbledore ever since he got Remus into Hogwarts and he was sure he could get an extra piece of chocolate out of her at the next full moon if he informed her of Dumbledore’s ‘belief’.

“Now, Mr Lupin, I wanted to ask about your transformation last night. It was a particularly nasty one. In fact it was by far the worst that you’ve had since coming to Hogwarts.”

Gingerly pulling himself up into a sitting position while Dumbledore spoke Remus mentally catalogued his injuries, wincing when he realised just how many there were. Rough night was an understatement.

Dumbledore gave him a sympathetic smile before continuing, “I know that the transformations are particularly bad in your teenage years but this seems to be a rather extreme jump from the months before Christmas. In addition to that, the shack itself has sustained a large amount of damage. Now, I’m not concerned about the actual damage.” He held up a hand to put a stop to Remus’ stammered apologies. “I’m more concerned with why you were that determined to get out of the shack in the first place.”

Remus flinched as Dumbledore referred to the wolf as ‘you’ despite knowing that the headmaster didn’t use it cruelly as others would have. Dumbledore had previously shown mild concern at Remus’ determination to regard the wolf as entirely separate from himself.

“Is there anything you could tell me that would explain what happened? Anything from your transformation at home last month? Or perhaps something occurred before last night’s change?”

He was about to tell Dumbledore that nothing had been different either during the holidays or the night before when a sudden realisation hit Remus. “There was something last night,” he mumbled, fiddling with a piece of the bed sheet, “There was a point in the transformation where my thoughts sort of...um...blended with the wolf’s.”

Dumbledore made an interested noise and, out of the corner of his eye, Remus could see him leaning forward in his chair. “Do you mean you can remember what you were thinking while in wolf form?”

Suppressing the urge to flinch again, Remus frowned slightly as tried to think of a way to put it so that the older wizard would understand. “Not exactly...” he started off tentatively, “...um...well I’ve been having these dreams recently that I’ve been trying to remember. Dreams about the wolf, but not nightmares. They were quite nice actually which is what made them so strange.”

Remus lips twitched in a self deprecating smile but he still didn’t look up. “I knew that there was another person in the dream and that’s what I was trying to recall. Then the transformation started and I suddenly remembered who it was, but it was as if the picture in my head actually came from the wolf and not from me.”

“Do you remember anything after that?” Dumbledore asked.

Remus’ hands had started to shake but he continued twiddle with the sheet to avoid looking Dumbledore in the eye. “Not much. Just that the wolf wanted to find the person...and make him ‘pack’.” The last part was said so quietly that most people would have missed it.

He jumped as Dumbledore’s hand suddenly covered his own trembling ones. Dumbledore knew as well as Remus just how a werewolf made someone a part of their pack, so when Remus finally forced himself to look up he was a little unprepared for the kind smile the man gave him.

“It’s in a wolf’s nature, Remus,” Dumbledore said quietly, “An instinct which you normally wouldn’t remember. It’s not your fault.” He patted Remus’ hands. “I _am_ a little troubled, however, as to why you remembered that small portion this time and the fact that it was honed in on a specific person. May I ask who that person was?”

Remus nodded. “It was Sirius Black.”

At that the headmaster’s eyes widened slightly and darted away for an instant. “Now that _is_ interesting.” he said quietly, almost to himself.

But before Remus had a chance to question why, Dumbledore rose to his feet, pulled another chocolate frog from the seemingly unending supply he kept hidden in his robes and placed it on the bedside table with a wink and his finger held to his lips in a shushing motion.

“Get some rest, Mr Lupin. We’ll continue this another time.” he said before sweeping out through the curtains.

****

The first thing that Sirius became aware of was the awful pounding pain in his head. The second was a very annoying tapping sound coming from somewhere to his left. He tried to ignore it but the more he tried the louder and more irritating the noise got until he finally opened his eyes to glare in that direction.

“Godric’s left nut! You’re awake!” James practically shouted, leaping to his feet which finally stopped one of them tapping on the floor.

“Mr Potter!” McGonagall was seated on a chair next to the one James had just vacated and was looking exasperated.

“Sorry Professor.” he muttered before hopping up to take a seat on the bed next to Sirius. The jolt of movement made Sirius groan as various aches and pains all over his body made themselves known.

Letting James talk without paying any attention to him Sirius wondered, for a moment, why McGonagall was in his dorm. Gradually the realisation sunk in that his curtains weren’t normally white and neither was his bedding.

“What am I doing in the Hospital Wing?” he blurted out.

James stopped talking in mid-flow and glared down at him. “Haven’t you listened to a word I’ve been saying?”

Before Sirius could answer McGonagall cleared her throat. “Okay, Mr Potter, you’ve seen for yourself that Mr Black is perfectly fine. It’s about time you went to your lessons.”

“But Professor...” James started to protest but then McGonagall raised The Eyebrow of Doom at him so he jumped off the bed and hurriedly picked up his bag from the floor. “See you later, mate.” he called loudly to Sirius before bounding out of the curtained-off area.

McGonagall glared after him and murmured something that sounded like _‘...be the death of me...’_ before she turned back to Sirius.

“Now, Mr Black, it appears that you have had a rather interesting night, although I suspect that _this_ time it was through no fault of your own. At least not directly, but I wouldn’t be enormously surprised if I found out it was some sort of retaliation for something you and your two cohorts have done.” She fixed Sirius with a pointed look.

Sirius struggled to a sitting position as his temper began to build. The bloody Slytherins had done something to him. Oh, they were going to pay dearly for this...once he’d found out what it was that they’d done.

McGonagall continued, “At some point during the night you climbed out of bed, waking up Mr Potter when you knocked several items onto the floor and headed down to your common room. You didn’t respond when Mr Potter tried talking to you, appearing for all intents and purposes to be sleepwalking.”

“I was sleepwalking?” Sirius asked, surprised.

McGonagall shook her head. “No. We don’t believe that was what it was. You left the common room with Mr Potter trailing you and trying to wake you up and encountered two prefects on duty. They didn’t believe that you were actually sleepwalking and thought it was a ruse to get out of trouble for wandering the castle at night.”

She gave him another pointed look at that, and Sirius tried to school his expression to convey that he would _never_ do such a terrible thing. “When you refused to stop walking away from them Mr Bridger cast the Impediment Jinx on you but it merely reflected off you and onto the unfortunate Miss Pryce.”

McGonagall paused there as Sirius gaped at her in shock. A spell had bounced off him? Surely that was impossible without a counter-spell. Perhaps James has cast one on the sly to stop him getting hit.

His thoughts must’ve shown on his face because McGonagall said, “I have heard the account of all three students who witnessed it and they match up. Also Miss Pryce didn’t have her wand drawn and Mr Potter had left his in the dormitory so they couldn’t have interfered with the spell.” She appeared to be just as confused as Sirius about the situation. “At that point Mr Bridger came to fetch me and you had already wandered outside before I was able to stop you and bring you here.”

Sirius noticed that the professor didn’t mention just how she had stopped him but, judging from the way he ached all over, he guessed it was some sort of stunning spell.

“Now I need to ask you, did anything you ate or drank yesterday taste a little odd to you?”

Sirius almost laughed at the question. “Professor, James and I have been victim of enough pranks to take notice if something tastes weird.” He couldn’t be sure but he thought he heard her give a slight snort at the word _‘victim’_.

“I suppose that is probably true,” McGonagall agreed, “Very well, did you touch anything that felt wrong for some reason?” She hesitated, “Maybe something you inadvertently brought from home...”

A list of likely suspects had been rolling through Sirius’ mind: Snape, Malfoy, that Ravenclaw who’d called Peter fat and they’d hexed to talk only in dirty limericks, Snape, Bellatrix, Snape... but McGonagall’s final question gave him pause. Something from home? That meant dark magic.

He swallowed hard. “How bad _is_ this, Professor?”

She looked a little flustered at Sirius’ question but was saved from answering by the arrival of Dumbledore.

“Ah, Mr Black, it’s good to see you awake. Here have a chocolate frog.” Dumbledore handed one over and seemed to be amused by some private joke, especially when McGonagall waved away another one with a roll of her eyes. The twinkling faded from his eyes though as he peered intently at Sirius. “I need you to think carefully, Mr Black. Do you remember if you dreamed anything last night?”

As soon as Dumbledore asked the question everything came flooding back to him. The abandoned common room, the suit of armour, the blood and the howls. The intensity of the feelings he had in the dream rushed over him and, without meaning to, he whispered, “The wolf...”

He saw McGonagall start at the words and turn her head as if she could see out beyond the curtains before Dumbledore pressed a reassuring hand on her shoulder. “What about the wolf?” he urged Sirius.

Sirius shook his head to clear it a bit. “I dreamed that I could hear a wolf. I knew it was in pain, there was blood on floor, and I had to get to him. If I could get to him, I could make him better and he wouldn’t leave...” Sirius trailed off, afraid he’d revealed too much.

McGonagall made a small strangled noise in the back of her throat but Dumbledore ignored it as he continued to press Sirius, “So you’ve seen the wolf before?”

After a slight hesitation Sirius nodded. “I’ve had a couple of dreams about him before but they weren’t like the ones last night.”

“They were nice ones.” It wasn’t a question but Sirius nodded at the headmaster anyway.

Dumbledore stroked his beard for a moment, his eyes far away before he suddenly seemed to come back to himself and smiled at Sirius. “I think I will probably need to speak with you some more about this later on today. For now though I’m sure you’d like the opportunity to get some more sleep.”

Then he ushered McGonagall out and they left Sirius to wonder just what the hell was going on.

****

Sirius wasn’t sure what he’d expected the headmaster’s office to look like. Something a bit like McGonagall’s office, he supposed, but with boxes of sweets instead of her neat and organised piles of books. Dumbledore’s office, it turned out, was so much better than that. It was a hive of activity. Everywhere Sirius looked something was moving or spinning or buzzing and then when he leaned closer to look he would catch sight of yet another moving thing from the corner of his eye and his head would whip in that direction instead.

Lupin, on the other hand, was sat completely still, his head not even lifting from where he was worrying the edge of his sleeve with his fingers. He didn’t even seem impressed by the phoenix sitting on a perch by the window. _A phoenix!_ It was brilliant. Sirius couldn’t wait to tell James. Of course it would’ve been more impressive if the bird actually burst into flames while he was there but you couldn’t have everything.

The sound of the office door opening made Sirius jump back from where he was poking a weird metal contraption that occasionally let out puffs of purple smoke.

“Sorry to keep you waiting, gentlemen, but it appears that Peeves has been pelting rotten eggs at anyone who walks up to the Astronomy Tower and Mr Filch took a bit of calming down.” Dumbledore announced as he took his seat behind the desk opposite the two boys, “I do hope you weren’t too bored.” His eyes twinkled knowingly at Sirius who grinned back.

“I suppose that you’re wondering why I have asked you both to join me here this evening.” Before Dumbledore could continue there was the unmistakable pop of a house-elf arriving, laden with a large plate of cookies and a jug of pumpkin juice. “Ah, excellent timing. Thank you, Mookey.”

The house-elf bowed before disapparating again and Dumbledore poured out three glasses of the pumpkin juice, pushing two of them towards Sirius and Lupin. “Please help yourselves to the cookies. We may be here for a while so make yourselves comfortable.”

Sirius, never one to turn down treats, eagerly reached for his glass and a cookie. While Lupin mumbled that he was ‘fine, thank you’ and shrank back even further into his seat, looking so pale that Sirius half expected him to turn translucent at any moment.

Taking a cookie for himself Dumbledore began to talk, “We had two separate incidents last night that, after speaking to you both this morning, I believe were not that separate after all. In fact I believe that Mr Black’s incident was triggered by Mr Lupin’s but...” he paused here and pinned Lupin with an intent look. “...wasn’t the cause of it.”

Lupin made a small squeaking sound but gave the headmaster a shaky nod. Sirius, for his part, just looked from Lupin to Dumbledore and back again with a complete look of confusion on his face. Lupin had something to do with the weird not-really sleepwalking thing?

Dumbledore nodded back at Lupin. “Now in order to explain to you both exactly what I believed happened last night, I will need to let you in on a secret Mr Black. But I must ask you to never tell anyone of what you have learned here. I cannot impress on you enough the seriousness of this.”

Sirius swallowed the obligatory snigger at ‘serious’ and nodded his agreement and understanding, thinking that there was an awful lot of nodding going on right now.

After shooting a quick glance at Lupin, Dumbledore stared at Sirius. “Mr Lupin is a werewolf.”

Sirius stared at Dumbledore expectantly, waiting for him to continue before a raised eyebrow in his direction reminded him that he was not supposed to have known that already. “Oh! _Oh! A werewolf!_ Merlin’s underpants that’s...um...horrible. Lupin! I can’t believe I’ve been sharing my room with such a...a...monster!”

It was not Sirius’ best performance, as indicated by the slight twitching of Dumbledore’s mouth and Lupin’s wide-eyed, open-mouthed stare. But he had been in the infirmary all day; he couldn’t be expected to be on top form.

“You knew!” The other boy accused.

“Well...yeah.” Sirius shrugged. “We _have_ shared a room for four years. Actually we thought you were being bullied at first but then...”

“We?” Lupin interrupted in a hysterical sounding voice.

Sirius nodded. “James and Peter. We haven’t told anyone else, I swear!”

Lupin raised a trembling hand to cover his eyes but Dumbledore actually looked quite pleased, “This does make things a lot easier.” he smiled. At Lupin’s incredulous look he added gently, “If they were going to inform the rest of the school or attack you personally they would have done it by now.”

“Yeah, Lupin.” Sirius manfully suppressed the urge to poke his tongue out at the boy, his Gryffindor heckles raised at the implication that they would hurt or use information against one of their own.

“You’re right. Sorry, Sirius.” Lupin tried to give him a smile, but it was a bit watery looking. “It’s just a bit of a shock.”

“S’Alright.” Sirius accepted the apology and, feeling a bit sorry for the other boy, gave a small smile back.

“Now that that is all out in the open, perhaps I should continue.” Dumbledore prodded the plate of cookies towards Lupin but the boy still didn’t pick one up. “Remus, when was the last time you had the dream you were telling me about?”

“Um...the first night back after the holidays.” Lupin looked a little bemused at the question but Sirius felt a sense of foreboding.

“And Sirius, before last night, when was the last time that you had the dream _you_ were telling me about?”

Sirius shifted in his chair and ignored the way Lupin had turned to look at him. “T...the night we got back to school.”

“Sirius, in your dream you were with a wolf. While Remus, in _your_ dream you were in wolf form and Sirius was there too. Correct?” Dumbledore asked.

Lupin just nodded but Sirius spoke up, “But it was just a big wolf in my dream. It wasn’t a werewolf; it didn’t look anything like those drawings in the library books.”

Dumbledore shook his head sadly. “Unfortunately you’ll find that the majority of information on werewolves as given in books is somewhat misconstrued, as I’m sure Mr Lupin agrees, and I imagine that the drawings used are from the artist’s imagination rather than actual research. I’m led to believe that a werewolf looks like any wolf except quite a bit larger.”

 _Huh_. Sirius digested that information for a moment and then realised that how the werewolf actually looked didn’t really make much difference.

“Um...Professor, are you saying that Sirius and I are having the same dreams at the same time?” Lupin asked, “And that they are about each other?”

“That’s exactly right,” Dumbledore agreed, “Although it should be noted that you were in wolf form in both sets of dreams.”

Lupin turned to look at Sirius again, his face showing as much confusion as Sirius felt.

“Remus we’ve discussed your continued insistence that the wolf is entirely separate from you but you have to accept that there are some ways in which you are the same.” Dumbledore’s words caused Lupin to drop his head and scowl in the direction of the floor. “It’s extremely rare for a werewolf to be so young. You were six when you were bitten and in normal circumstances when a werewolf comes across a human that small and weak they kill rather than infect.”

Lupin looked as if he’d heard all this many times before but Sirius felt shocked. Lupin had been going through this since he was six years old? And Sirius thought _his_ childhood had been bad.

“The werewolf is just as young as you are,” Dumbledore continued, “and therefore doesn’t have the maturity to understand things as an adult werewolf would. An adult would understand being alone. It wouldn’t like it because wolves are pack creatures, but it would understand. A teenage werewolf doesn’t.”

This part was apparently new to Lupin as he raised his head cautiously and asked, “That’s why it’s looking for a pack-mate?”

Dumbledore nodded.

“But what’s that have to do with...?” Lupin trailed off and glanced at Sirius, who’d been wondering the same thing.

“Hmm...that is a bit more difficult to explain,” Dumbledore said, “I believe that lately the wolf’s instincts and your own thoughts have become focused on the same thing. I’ve seen the way you’ve cut yourself off from other people, Remus. You’ve been doing so since you arrived at the school. I’d rather hoped that you would drop your guard after you’d been here a while and let people be your friends but...”

The headmaster sighed and Lupin averted his eyes. “Once you’ve started down that road it’s difficult to stop, isn’t it? I think you want companionship just as strongly as the werewolf does. You just don’t know how to get it.”

“Wait a damn minute!” Sirius burst in angrily and at Dumbledore’s raised eyebrows quickly added, “...um...Sir. This is happening because Lupin wants a friend?” He stared at the other boy incredulously. “I was wandering around the school in a trance and getting stunned by professors because you want a bloody mate?”

“Not exactly, Mr Black.” Dumbledore was obviously choosing to ignore the swearing but had reverted back to using Sirius’ surname to show his displeasure at the outburst.

Probably because Lupin was now cowering back in his chair again, looking horrified, but Sirius didn’t care about that. He was too angry. McGonagall had implicated his parents and their type of magic in this, a thought that had terrified Sirius as he knew full well how nasty that could be, but all along it had been because stupid Lupin was too weird to make friends with anyone. He deliberately pushed down the small voice that pointed out how he, James and Peter had backed off when they’d discovered Lupin’s secret and that was why he probably stayed away from people. No. It was Lupin’s fault!

“Mr Black!” Dumbledore had apparently been trying to get Sirius’ attention for a few moments while Sirius glared at Lupin with his hands curled into fists. He tore his eyes away and turned to face the headmaster instead. “I’ve already said that Remus isn’t the cause, not entirely anyway. It’s the _both of you_ that have caused this.”

That gave Sirius pause. “What? Why would I do this? I have friends.”

Dumbledore looked relived to have the conversation back on track. “This isn’t about friendship as much as companionship.”

At Sirius’ perplexed expression he tried to explain further. “The first time you had the dream, can you remember what you were thinking before you went to sleep?”

Sirius thought back. He’d been at home and it had been after one of those awful parties. He’d accidentally bumped into the girl his mother had been trying to marry him off to, spilling her drink down her dress and causing her and her family to storm off. His mother had been furious and when they got home fired a curse that left him writhing on the floor in agony. He’d gone to bed wishing that he had someone to talk to, someone that he could explain all that to and who would comfort him. He loved James like a brother but he could never talk to him about his family, not after meeting the Potters and seeing their perfect lives. He wanted a friend whose life wasn’t perfect, who could maybe understand and, just for that moment, he had wanted someone who was big enough and scary enough to stand up to his mother for him.

What was scarier than a werewolf? Sirius felt the blood drain out of his face at the thought.

He looked at Lupin and all his anger evaporated. Lupin’s whole life was pain and must’ve needed someone to talk to about that as much as Sirius needed someone.

“I did do this too,” he said, his eyes intent on Lupin’s face. “but I don’t know how.”

“It is your inherent magic, the both of you,” Dumbledore said kindly, so as not to cause any more distress to either boy, “Subconsciously you were both crying out for the same thing and your magic connected, then it mixed with the werewolf’s dark magic when it peaked last night on the full moon. It made Sirius seek out the wolf and the werewolf try to find Sirius and make him pack, even though the attempt was killing him.”

“Killing him?” Sirius whipped his head around to stare at Lupin again. “You almost died?”

Lupin seemed startled at the sudden concern so Dumbledore answered for him, “Madam Pomfrey reached him in time, but this is going to keep happening. It’s old magic. Simple yet powerful.”

Lupin found his voice. “Is there _no_ way to stop it? Surely there must be something. If it’s old magic can’t we just use more old magic to counter it?”

“I’m afraid not, Remus. This type of magic can’t be turned off with a simple spell. It either has to run its course or you look for another way around the problem.”

“Run its course?” Lupin shook his head violently. “No. That’s not an option. I’m never going to infect someone with this.”

It hadn’t even occurred to Sirius that he could get turned. “So we find a way around it.” he said firmly, wholeheartedly agreeing with the not getting infected thing.

Dumbledore graced them both with a large smile as if they’d just said exactly what he wanted to hear. “I’m sure that by working together you’ll be able to find a solution, boys.”

Sirius wasn’t sure he liked the sound of that ‘you’. “Um...are you not going to help us, Sir?” They were kind of out of their depth.

Dumbledore didn’t answer for a moment; he was prodding the cookies once more towards Lupin who was still refusing them, “For Godric’s sake. Just eat one before you faint or something! You look awful!” Sirius exclaimed, grabbing a cookie and shoving it into Lupin’s hand before turning back to Dumbledore for an answer to his question.

Dumbledore looked very much as if he was trying to stifle a laugh at Sirius’ mini explosion before he managed to control himself enough to answer, “I will, of course, be looking for anything new that can help you. The problem is that the only solution I can think of is very dangerous and extremely illegal. In fact only highly trained wizards are able to achieve it and as your headmaster I cannot even discuss that particular course of action as it might be misconstrued some sort of encouragement.”

He gave a regretful shake of his head before clearing his throat. “On an entirely unrelated note, Sirius, Professor McGonagall mentioned to me that you are quite gifted in transfigurations.”

Sirius gave Dumbledore a look of disbelief, both at the change in subject and the statement itself. It was his best class, but there was no way McGonagall would have given him a complement like that.

“In fact I thought it may benefit you to take some extra lessons, extra training as it were, in the subject. Perhaps Remus here would like to help you with the extra studying that might bring.” Dumbledore’s eyes twinkled and Sirius felt a smile growing on his face.

“Actually, Sir, I can’t think of anything I’d like more than to spend some extra time with the lovely Professor McGonagall.” Sirius grinned.

Dumbledore made a strange sound at that which he covered with a cough. While Lupin just stared open-mouthed at the two of them, apparently struck dumb at the direction the conversation had turned.

“Excellent news.” Dumbledore said, once his tiny coughing fit had passed, “I’ll tell her to arrange a suitable time for the lessons.” He then stood up, indicating that the meeting was over. Both boys scrambled to their feet and began heading towards the door before Dumbledore called out again. “Before I forget Remus, I know that you’re very fond of reading and I’ve been meaning to lend you this book. Perhaps you may find something useful in it.”

Sirius’ smile grew even wider and he decided that he kind of worshipped the old man.


	3. Chapter 3

Lying in the same position he’d been in for the past hour, Remus couldn’t help going over the weirdness that had been his day. Over and over like it was stuck on a loop. It was normal for him not to able to get to sleep the night after the full moon. He tended to sleep for most of the day and then used the night to catch up on any homework he’d missed or, if he wasn’t up to that, read a book. But his current book, the one Dumbledore had ‘lent’ him, was on the bed next to him untouched while Remus stared up at the bed hangings.

He wasn’t sure which part of the day had been more weird. The fact that he apparently _needed_ Sirius Black. The fact that Sirius Black apparently _needed_ him. Or the fact that Dumbledore was apparently encouraging them to do break the law, albeit for a good reason.

Plus he couldn’t shake the belief that this was all his fault. He got that Sirius’ magic was involved too but if Remus hadn’t been a werewolf in the first place then it wouldn’t have progressed as far as it had. Which was why he’d been so surprised that Sirius’ display of temper in Dumbledore’s office had dissipated so quickly. Remus had fully been expecting a punch to the face or, at the very least, the cold shoulder once they’d left Dumbledore’s office but he got neither. In fact Sirius had been disturbingly excited about whatever _very dangerous and extremely illegal_ thing Dumbledore expected them to do, as if it was just another one of his pranks. The boy may very well be clinically insane Remus decided; that would certainly explain the mood swings.

Perhaps it would also explain why the seemingly perfect and definitely popular Sirius Black wanted a friend so badly that his magic called out to a werewolf. No, not a friend, he had plenty of those. _A companion_. But what on earth could Remus offer him that James Potter couldn’t? Apart from a big slathering beast once a month. One that couldn’t even leave the room he was cooped up in.

Remus was startled from his confusing thoughts by a rustling noise outside his drapes. He reached for his wand and cast a quick lumos just as Sirius stuck his head in.

“Oh good. You’re still awake.” Then without further ado, he jumped up on top of Remus’ bed, casting a silencing spell once he was settled against the headboard.

“Um...hello?” Remus managed to get out after blinking at the other boy a few times.

“Couldn’t sleep and I figured you’d probably still be awake too.” Sirius said gruffly, looking a little self conscious; which was almost as shocking as the fact that he was sitting on Remus’ bed in the middle of the night in the first place.

Remus nodded. “I slept almost all day so I’m not really tired now.”

There was an awkward silence that reigned for a few minutes before Sirius pointed at the book next to Remus. “Have you found anything yet?”

“Oh! Well, I haven’t looked at it yet to be honest.”

Sirius looked at him in disbelief as if it should’ve been the first thing he’d done when they got back to the room. Which, in hindsight, it probably should’ve been. “What the hell have you been doing all this time then?”

Remus ducked his head, embarrassed. “Um...thinking...”

“Thinking?” Sirius rolled his eyes. “See, this is why people think you’re weird. It’s all that thinking all the time.”

“People think I’m weird? What people?”

Sirius snorted, “Everyone! You think too much, you never talk; you’re always _reading_ and not even for class most of the time. It’s weird.”

“Being well read is not weird!” Remus voice grew louder as he grew more indignant. He was shy, yes, he knew that but ...

 _'Weird’_ Sirius mouthed at him then picked up the book, opened it at random and raised it to his face to hide a smile. He appeared to be getting a strange sort of enjoyment out of making Remus angry, which just made him angrier.

“Well at least I didn’t accidentally charm a goblet to keep hitting me around the head,” Remus pointed out, “Do you know why? Because I _read_ how to do the spell properly.”

Sirius let out a surprised laugh. “How about last week when you managed to melt your cauldron with your sleeping draught? Did you read how to do that too?”

Remus crossed his arms over his chest and huffed loudly. That hadn’t been his fault. “The tangleknot root looks a lot like the morass vine; anyone could have made that mistake.” The fact that nobody else _had_ was beside the point.

Sirius laughed again. “You’re funny when you’re mad, Lupin.”

He reached over and genially thumped Lupin on the shoulder, unwittingly hitting a still sore patch. Remus tried to hide the wince but wasn’t quite quick enough and he watched as Sirius’ smirk fell off his face.

“Oh Merlin, I forgot. You’re still sick, right? Shit!” Sirius swore, looking mad at himself.

“It’s okay,” Remus assured him, “I’m just a little banged up. It’s fine, really.”

The awkward silence descended again and Remus was silently berating himself for acting like a girl. Boys thumped and punched each other all the time; he’d seen it happen often enough after sharing a room for four years with Sirius, James and Peter. None of _them_ ever winced, even when James had clearly been in pain after a quidditch match and Sirius wrestled him to the ground over something or other. Maybe he _was_ a bit weird after all.

After a while Remus noticed that Sirius was fidgeting. He kept glancing at Remus, opening his mouth before shutting it and looking away again. Remus turned so that he was fully facing the other boy and raised an eyebrow inquiringly; waiting for Sirius to say whatever was bothering him.

“What’s it like?” Sirius finally asked in a small voice. Remus must have looked confused so Sirius clarified. “When you change? What’s it like?”

 _Pain_

“Oh!” Remus faltered, not really knowing how to answer. “Um...it hurts...”

Sirius rolled his eyes again and gave Remus a _‘that’s obvious’_ look so Remus tried again, unsure of how much detail to go into. “Well, a lot of my bones break in order to be reformed in a different position.”

Sirius stopped slouching and started shuffling closer with curious expression, “Really? Like how?”

Remus cleared his throat uncomfortably. “Err... like the bones in my legs break because the knee has to bend the other way.”

When Sirius’ brow furrowed in confusion, Remus tried to explain, “Have you seen a dog up close? Imagine how their back legs bend.”

He drew a motion in the air to indict a dog’s leg. He was discovering that it was much easier to talk about it if he took a step away from it being _him_ undergoing the transformation and did it more like a professor explaining something to a class.

“Oh.” Sirius nodded at the drawing Remus had just made in the air then exclaimed, “ _Oh_! That’s _horrible!_ ” The expression on his face, however, was less horrified than in awe and Remus had to remind himself that this was one of the boys who blew up a couple of flesh eating slugs in the first year just to see what would happen.

“Y...yes. It’s pretty horrible.” he agreed, warily.

“Is there blood?” Sirius crept even closer. “I bet there’s loads of blood.”

Remus nodded helplessly, not sure how to take this reaction. It was better than Sirius being afraid of him or pitying him he supposed. “T..there’s usually blood. The wolf bites himself, you see, because he can smell human on his body.”

“Ooh, does that mean you have lots of scars? Let’s see them!” Sirius’ eyes were scarily wide.

That made Remus hesitate because he’d worked hard to hide his scars, fearing what other people would think when they saw the ugly marks. That’s why he tended to wear too big jumpers all the time; even when it was sweltering in the summer months.

Finally he took a deep breath and rolled up one leg of his pyjama bottoms. Sirius grabbed Remus’ wand and held it closer to his leg so that the light would pick up the thin silvery lines made by ripping claws and teeth. Remus closed his eyes for a few moments to work through his embarrassment at someone else seeing the marks but when he opened them again he was somewhat surprised to see Sirius looking at the scars as if they were the coolest thing he’d ever seen.

Sirius raised his head and grinned at Remus. “You know these could work with that weird thing you’ve got going on. It’ll make you look all dangerous and mysterious. You’ll be beating girls off with a bat.”

It was such a ridiculous statement that Remus just chuckled and grinned back.

****

The next day Sirius was in a very good mood considering he hadn’t had much sleep the night before and had discovered that he would be going into a trancelike state every full moon because he needed a refuge from his tyrannical mother. In fact he was in such a good mood that James had been giving him suspicious looks all day and Peter kept checking his reflection in any shiny surface he could find in case Sirius had made all his freckles flash green and purple again.

As well as being in high spirits, Sirius was also feeling a bit antsy. He was dying to know what it was in Dumbledore’s book that made him lend it to Lupin. He knew that Lupin had been awake long after Sirius had returned to his own bed and was sure that he must’ve been reading. Unfortunately he just couldn’t seem to find a suitable moment to corner the other boy between lessons and Lupin hadn’t been at lunch either.

So all in all, a high spirited and antsy Sirius equalled a very hyperactive Sirius and as the day grew on even the Hufflepuffs were giving him a wide berth.

“You’ve done something, I know it!” James said as they made their way to the last class of the day. “Come on, let us in. What’s the prank?”

“Is it on Snivelus?” piped up Peter.

“Nope. No prank,” Sirius happily informed his friends, “Although...that’s not a bad idea...” He eyed Snape who was walking a few feet in front of them, then pulled out his wand and cast a quick spell that caused the bottom of Snape’s bag to rip open and spill all its contents on the floor.

“Poor, Black. Very poor.” James shook his head sadly at Sirius and then, never one to miss an opportunity, turned to yell loudly, “Why, Severus, is that a diary? Dear diary, today I wished that I was even better at kissing Malfoy’s arse. Perhaps then he’d let me in on the secret of how to make my hair so girly and silky smooth.”

“You’re a fine one to talk about hair, Potter,” Snape spat from where he crouched on the ground, shovelling items into his hastily repaired bag, “I’m guessing that yours is always in that state from having your head shoved so far up Black’s backside all day!”

Sirius laughed and nudged James’ shoulder. “Ooh! He’s got you there mate.”

James gave Sirius a quick shove. “Well it just goes to show how big your arse is, really, if my head can fit up there so easily.”

“Eww!” Peter made a face.

Finally having gathered all his things from the floor, Snape stood up and violently shouldered his way past the laughing boys. “Fucking disgusting, the pair of you!” he muttered.

“That _was_ pretty disgusting.” Peter agreed as they entered the dark Potions classroom.

“Aww...poor Petey-poo! Are you feeling all left out?” Sirius exclaimed in a falsetto voice, shamelessly using the name he and James had once heard Peter’s mum call him. He made to try and pinch Peter’s cheeks as the boy ducked away from him.

“Gerroff, you nutter!” Peter yelped and run around the desk trying to get away while James collapsed into his seat laughing.

Once they’d settled down and the lesson had started, Sirius remembered that they were still working on the sleeping draughts from the week before. As James reheated the first part they’d made Sirius raised his head from the laid out ingredients on the desk and scanned the room. Spotting Lupin and catching his eye, Sirius lifted some of the dried yellow plant in one hand and mouthed _‘morass’_ and some of the not-quite-as-yellowy twisted roots in the other and mouthed _‘tangleknot’_. A smirk in full effect on his face.

Lupin glared at him, made a rude gesture with his hand and turned back to his cauldron, obviously trying to hide a smile. Sirius chuckled and started to go back to cutting the next ingredient needed when he was stopped by a sharp elbow in his side.

“The fuck was that?” James hissed at him out of the corner of his mouth.

“What?” Sirius shrugged.

James huffed, “You know what! Since when are you and Lupin so friendly?”

“What’s the matter, Potter? Jealous ‘cause you want all my attention for yourself?” Sirius reached out and ruffled James’ hair, making it even more untidy than it was already.

Jumping away and pointlessly trying to flatten his hair back down, James retorted, “More like desperate for someone to take you off my hands, Black.”

Grinning at each other, they carried on brewing the potion in front of them before James spoke up again. “Really though, when did you become mates with Lupin?”

“Just feel sorry for the bloke, that’s all.” Sirius carefully kept his eyes on the spoon he was using to crush a beetle.

James sighed, “I know what you mean. It’s getting harder to ignore isn’t it? The whole...” He made a complicated gesture in the air.

Sirius made a non-committal noise, still avoiding eye contact. His friends hadn’t made any connection between Remus, the full moon and Sirius’ _‘episode_ ’ as James insisted on calling it. He’d decided to run with McGonagall’s suggestion that it had been caused by something he’d accidentally brought from home, it was plausible enough for his friends to accept for now.

Trying to change the subject, he pointed out that the potion had just turned blue and passed James the crushed beetle to be added before stirring three times anti-clockwise. As expected James’ attention turned fully to the cauldron; he had recently come up with the idea that if he made a better potion than Evans (potions being her favourite subject) she would be nice to him for once. Personally, Sirius believed that the day Evans was nice to James would be the day the sky rained cauldron cakes.

The rest of the lesson passed uneventfully. Right up until James was ladling their finished potion into a jar when an odd whistling noise started up across the room. Sirius turned in the direction of the noise just in time to see a thick green sludge explode from Lupin’s cauldron in a geyser, splattering Lupin and his potions partner and covering their desk.

As Professor Slughorn started to huff and the rest of the room broke into giggles, Sirius made a big show of picking up his potions book and reading the contents. He grinned evilly when he could feel Lupin’s glare on him.

That evening, Sirius waited until James was at quidditch practice and Peter was fully immersed in his charms homework before closing his own books, announcing he was finished and heading out of the common room towards the dorm. As expected Lupin was sitting on his bed surrounded by his own school books, trying to catch up on what he’d missed the day before.

“So have you read it yet?” Sirius strode into the room, not bothering with any pleasantries.

Lupin glanced up at him. “Shouldn’t you be at quidditch practice or something? I’m sure I saw James fetch his broom.”

“Two week ban.” Sirius shrugged. “Something about not aiming the bludger at the game’s announcer.”

The guy had deserved it though, claiming the Gryffindor team were a load of squibs who could barely hang onto their brooms.

Lupin chuckled. “Oh yeah. That was quite funny. His voice went ever so squeaky after that.”

“Hey, you were there?”

Lupin looked at him a bit oddly. “The entire school was there. Where did you think I’d be?”

Sirius threw himself down across his own bed and turned onto his stomach to look at Lupin. “Don’t know. Never thought about it really. I just didn’t peg you for a quidditch fan, that’s all.”

“Because I’m weird, right?” Lupin smiled.

“You got it. You probably do your homework during the match or something.” Sirius smiled back, “You know, you should sit with me and Peter at match this weekend. We’re planning on doing...something. I’m not sure what yet but we’re playing Slytherin so it has to be something good.”

“Because I live to become part of one of your pranks.” Lupin had turned back to his homework but Sirius could hear the slightly pleased note in Lupin’s voice.

“So have you?” Lupin looked up, a bit confused, and Sirius made an exasperated noise. “Have you read it yet? You’ve had the book for over a day.”

“Oh!” Lupin’s confusion cleared up and he glanced towards the door before speaking. “I’ve only looked at about half of it but I can’t really see how it’s going to help. Besides being stuff way beyond our abilities, there doesn’t seem to be anything that pertains to...well, our particular problem. Not so far anyway.”

Sirius sighed, “There’s got to be something, otherwise he wouldn’t have given it to us. Pass it here. I’ve finished my homework anyway, might as well do something useful.”

Catching the book when Lupin levitated it over to him, he settled down to read. Sirius made a quick scan of the summary; nothing on dreams or werewolves, although he didn’t actually think Dumbledore would give Lupin a book so he could read up on werewolves. The book was mostly stuff about transfiguration and Lupin was not kidding when he said it was advanced.

So...Dumbledore gave them a book on transfiguration and he suggested that Sirius take extra lessons in that subject...What the hell was he trying to tell them?

Sirius began to make a list of the clues in his head. Dangerous; illegal; transfiguration; very advanced; required help from McGonagall....McGonagall...

Sirius sat bolt upright. “Oh, holy crap!”


	4. Chapter 4

Remus was feeling confused, which apparently had become his default setting over the past few days.

He’d been buried in his Arithmancy homework, reading over the notes from the professor when Sirius suddenly sat up straight, swore and promptly fell off his bed...which caused a lot more swearing. Remus had opened his mouth to ask what happened but then James stomped into the room, in a complete temper and started to yell at Sirius without even stopping to question why his friend was lying on the floor.

“I got knocked off my broom, you complete bastard!” James’ face was very red and his arms were flailing about quite dangerously. “I was hanging from it by one hand because Hutchinson is totally incompetent! That bludger missed me by an inch! _An inch!_ ” He held his forefinger and thumb out to indicate a measurement that definitely wasn’t an inch but Remus didn’t have the heart to point that out.

While James was pacing back and forth across the room and yelling all of this, Sirius had managed to climb back onto his bed and was waving his hand to get Remus’ attention, while at the same time stashing the book under his pillow away from prying eyes. Remus quickly shook his head at him and mouthed _‘later'_ , but that didn’t seem to be having any effect as Sirius just started pointing at the pillow hiding the book instead.

“...couldn’t hit a bludger if it was standing still in front of him and he had a six foot bat!” James had changed direction and was pacing back towards Sirius who stopped pointing and plastered an innocent expression on his face. “If someone whose name rhymes with _splack_ hadn’t got themselves banned I wouldn’t have been dangling from one arm 30 feet above the ground and...”

James changed direction again and Remus, who was already puzzling over ‘splack’, found himself staring at Sirius in amazement when he put his two hands on top of his head and started waggling them like a pair of demented bunny ears. Then he pointed towards the book and then did the bunny ears thing once more.

Direction change and another hastily applied innocent expression. “...laughing at me! Pardew does not get to laugh at me, I’m the bloody seeker! I should laugh at him and his stupid pointy chin...”

Shaking his head Remus turned back to his homework and tried to tune out the madness happening all around him like he usually did, but when James started pacing away again he couldn’t help but peek out under his fringe in Sirius’ direction. When he saw Remus looking, Sirius starting licking the back of his hand and then rubbing it across his cheek, in between bouts of pointing at the book.

“...lose the match. Do you know what that means? It means Slytherin will wi...Sirius? Are you pretending to be a cat?” James had stopped in the middle of the room and was staring at Sirius with his head tilted.

Immediately straightening up Sirius forced out a laugh. “Why on earth would I be pretending to be a cat? Everyone knows that I’m a proud lion.”

Remus closed his eyes and groaned silently in disbelief.

“You must be losing what’s left of your mind, Potter.” Sirius scoffed, “Hey, guess what? Lupin’s come up with a prank we can pull at the match on Saturday.”

Remus’ eyes flew open again and he groaned out loud in disbelief.

“Lupin has?” James turned towards him slowly and gave him a doubtful look.

Peter chose that moment to wander into the room. “The shouting appears to have stopped so I figured it was safe to come up here.” He paused and took in the sight of James and Sirius staring at Remus, who had his head in his hands. “Did I miss something? James, did you accidentally hex Lupin instead of Sirius?”

“Pete you know I never miss with a hex,” James spoke without taking his eyes off Remus, “Well...apart from that one time...and she stopped gnawing at peoples legs after a day or so. No, Lupin’s apparently got us a prank for us on Saturday.”

“What? No way!” Peter joined in the staring-at-Remus contest that seemed to be going on.

Remus raised his head. “No...I...no. No prank.”

“Don’t be modest, Lupin,” Sirius said in a far too cheerful voice, “Just tell us what it is.”

Then, while James and Peter still had their backs to him, he started making a series of gestures which he seemed to think would help but that Lupin couldn’t even begin to decipher.

Thinking of suitable ways to kill Sirius Black for this, Remus watched the boy’s hand move in a horizontal waving pattern. “Um...a banner?” Remus was hopeless at charades, as proved when Sirius smacked himself on the forehead.

“A banner? O-kay...” James said slowly, “Go on.”

Sirius seemed to have given up on him at this point so Remus wracked his mind for anything to do with a banner. “Y..you could charm it to say something...?” His voice trailed off as even he realised how pathetic that idea was.

Peter snorted, “A charmed banner? We could do that in the first yea...Hey!” Peter cried out indignantly as James kicked him on the shin at the same time that Sirius smacked the back of his head.

“Err...well a charmed banner is a good idea,” James started, looking at Remus as if he was a well meaning child, “but we were kind of looking for something on a bigger scale.”

Remus felt his heckles start to rise at the patronising tone. As if he hadn’t been forced to hear them plotting pranks for the last four years. Like he wasn’t good enough to be anywhere near their stupid little club. Huh! He’d show them.

“I didn’t mean a banner exactly. I meant charm the words to appear in the air, like a banner but without the fabric.” He’d read about a similar spell that they used at professional quidditch matches.

Sirius began to perk up a bit. “In the air? So you wouldn’t need to hold it up?” At Remus’ nod he grinned. “And if you weren’t holding it up, no one would know whose _‘banner’_ it was!”

“So we could make it say anything we wanted and no one could prove it was us!” James joined in, eyes gleaming. “Brilliant! You could do that?” he asked Remus, who was started to get a feeling of foreboding as the brief moment of stubbornness passed and he remembered just who he was dealing with here.

“Um...well, it’s only a few charms mixed together really, and you’d need to rework one of them slightly, but...”

“We could make it say ‘Slytherins are slimy tossers!’” James interrupted, having taken Remus’ first few words as confirmation.

“I’m not sure if that will be...”

“How big can we make the words, Lupin?” Sirius interrupted him this time.

Remus sighed, “I’ll have to check a couple of books but as big as you want I suppose.”

“Big enough to spread across the entire pitch?”

James threw a disbelieving look across the room. “Don’t be stupid, Sirius. That’ll interfere with the game.

“We could make it big enough to float across the top of the whole stand though, right?” Peter asked.

Remus just shrugged, really beginning to regret not leaving things at a charmed banner.

James sat on the edge of his bed and rested his arms on his knees as he thought. “How does the spell actually work, Lupin?”

“Like I said, I’ll have to check,” Remus replied, “but I think you do a bit of wand work and cast the charms underneath the area where you want it to appear. I’m pretty sure that you need to do it in a certain order though. One layer for the colours; another for the time and one for the words – that’s the layer you need to rework.”

“Wait a minute.” Sirius leaned forward. “One for the time? So you set it beforehand and not cast it while you’re sitting there?”

At Remus’ nod a big smile spread across the faces of all three of the other boys. He shifted, already able to tell that these were not smiles that bode well.

“So we could set it the day before.” Peter said.

Sirius shook his head. “Not just that, Petey boy. We could set it the day before...on all the stands!”

“Oh no!” Remus dropped his head back into his hands. It was spinning a little. This was not good. This was too big. He didn’t break rules. There was a very good reason why he didn’t break rules; he couldn’t afford to get in trouble.

“Oh yes, Lupin.” Sirius suddenly appeared on the bed behind him, bouncing and laughing and slinging an arm over Remus’ shoulder. “This is going to be fantastic!”

James and Peter laughed too and while they were occupied, taking turns on yelling out various Slytherin insults they could use, Sirius leant closer to Remus’ ear and whispered “Animagus.”

Remus turned to look at him, wondering what the hell he was talking about. Then his eyes widened and he let out a very undignified whimper.

****

“Dammit! I think I did that last bit wrong!” James swore then hastily cast a _Finite_ so that he could start the spell over.

Remus bit his lip to stop himself from pointing out that this was why they should have spent more time practising the spell and less time coming up with the insults. Instead he concentrated on his role as lookout while James was up in the rafters underneath the Gryffindor stand.

He should never have let Sirius have a look at the book he’d found in the library. The initial spell itself had turned out to be not as difficult as he’d expected but then Sirius had spotted another spell that could be used in conjunction with it. So that now, instead of the words spelling out one phrase, they could keep moving the letters to spell out lots of phrases over the course of a specified period of time. Or to put it another way, a personally tailored insult for each member of the Slytherin team.

“Oi, Lupin,” James called down, “was it loop over then the flick or loop under?”

Remus closed his eyes in distress. Between the length of time it was taking them and the fact that the other three were making no effort to keep their voices down - he could clearly hear Sirius and Peter over at the Hufflepuff stand - they were definitely going to get caught. “It’s loop over!” he hissed in as loud a voice as he dared.

“Right O! “ James yelled.

There were a few more minutes of silence during which Remus looked wistfully at the castle, imagining himself tucked up on the couch in the common room with a hot chocolate instead of standing outside in the cold after hours. Then James announced he was done and climbed back down the wooden structure.

“I think that’s done it,” he said, literally rubbing his hands with glee, “This is going to be brilliant! Nice plan, mate.”

Remus opened his mouth to point out that he’d only had the initial idea, but the words got stuck when his brain registered that James had called him _mate_. He’d never been called that before and it had never really bothered him, but now it...well, it felt kind of nice.

“Oi, wankers! We should head back if you two women have finished gossiping over there!” Sirius yelled across the pitch, causing Remus to look around in a panic because there was no way _somebody_ didn’t hear that.

James laughed and clapped him on the back. “Don’t worry; no one ever patrols outside at night. The only person who could possibly be out here is Hagrid and he’d probably help us.”

They walked over the grass towards Sirius and Peter then all four of them headed back to the castle, all the sniggering and pushing and shoving coming to a halt as they reached the castle doors. One by one they snuck through the door and silently made their way up the corridor, sticking to the shadows and trying not to wake any of the portraits. When they reached the statue of Aiden the Accident-prone Sirius tapped it three times on the left ear to reveal the passageway they had introduced Remus to earlier. It was very handy indeed, the steps in the passage cutting out the need to use the moving staircases which were very much out in the open.

Once they had reached the top of the steps James stepped out first to check that the coast was clear and then Remus went after him. Almost as soon as Remus emerged his hearing picked up on the sound of footsteps heading in their direction very quickly. He grabbed James’ arm and hauled him back into the passageway, almost bowling Peter over in his haste. By this time the footsteps had become audible to the others too and James just about managed to shut the tapestry hidden door before whoever they belonged to swept around the corner and passed by their hiding place.

They all held their breath as they waited for the unknown person to reach the other end of the corridor and then gave a collective sigh of relief. Remus’ heart was pounding at the close call. The rest of the journey back was uneventful and Remus gratefully fell through the portrait hole into the Gryffindor common room. All the laughing and playfulness returned now that they were safe and the boys made their way to the dorm where Remus collapsed onto his bed thankful to be back where he should have been all night.

“I thought we were done for then,” Peter chortled as he jumped onto his own bed, “I don’t think we’ve cut it that close since the time with the tadpoles.”

“Thanks to Lupin. We definitely would have been caught if he hadn’t pulled me back.” James laughed, “I don’t know how you heard someone coming though, mate. I didn’t hear a bloody thing.”

They all turned to look at Lupin expectantly and he waved his hand weakly in the air. “Oh...you know...” He was about to say something about being lucky but then he thought _bugger it!_ They all already knew anyway, it was just stupid to pretend they didn’t, “Wolf hearing. It comes in handy sometimes.”

Two mouths dropped open in shock and the other grinned.

“Y...you knew?” James recovered to speak first, “You knew that we knew?”

Remus nodded. “I knew that you knew.”

Sirius put his hand up helpfully and supplied, “I knew that he knew that we knew!”

“What?” James stared at Sirius for a moment then shook his head and turned back to Remus. “How did you know that we knew?”

While Peter put his head in his hands and groaned, “Can everyone stop saying _‘knew’_?” Remus realised that he hadn’t thought this through enough to explain that.

Before he could come up with a plausible reason though, Sirius jumped in. “I told him.”

All heads in the room turned to look at him in various forms of disbelief but he just shrugged. “I wanted to see if he had any cool scars.”

Relieved, Remus shot him a thankful look and Sirius gave him a minute nod of his head.

There was silence in the room for a long moment then James cleared his throat and asked, “So do you have any cool scars?”

Peter joined in, “Yeah, can you do anything else like the hearing thing? Can you smell things from far away too?”

“Ooh, like enhanced senses!”

“Is anything else...ahem... _enhanced_ too?”

“Oh, dear Lord!” Remus fell back onto his bed and covered his head with a pillow.

****

The next day dawned bright and sunny, but cold. Almost perfect conditions for a game of quidditch. Remus was already sat in the stands next to Sirius and Peter, waiting for the match to start. The other two were practically bouncing in excitement but Remus felt as though his stomach was tied up in knots. What had he been thinking, getting caught up in this? The professors were going to find out that it was them, and then his parents would be told...all because James Potter had been a bit patronising, which was hardly a rare occurrence. Remus thought that he may be sick. He felt a nudge to his shoulder and turned his head towards a wild-eyed Sirius.

“Stop looking so guilty. It’ll be okay, they can’t prove anything. We made sure of that.” he whispered, “They’ll figure it out if you don’t cheer the hell up, though.”

Remus nodded and tried unsuccessfully to give him a smile. Sirius just rolled his eyes.

A roar went up from the stands as the two teams appeared and within minutes the game was on. Remus closed his eyes and waited...and waited...and waited. He opened one eye and peeked up; clear skies. The sign should have appeared by now and judging from Sirius and Peter’s fidgeting they agreed.

He began to relax. Something had gone wrong, they’d probably missed something or used the wrong wand movement and the spell hadn’t wor...the crowd started to murmur and point. _Oh Merlin._

Remus looked across to the Ravenclaw stands and sure enough a giant blue cloud had just formed out of thin air and started to twist and turn. This movement was matched by the clouds that had appeared over the other stands. A yellow cloud over the Hufflepuffs, green over the Slytherin stands and – Remus glanced up – red over their own. Even the players had stopped flying and stopped to watch what was happening; although Remus thought detachedly that, _really_ , Noel Pardew might have taken the opportunity to throw the quaffle in his hands through one of the goals while the Slytherins were distracted.

He held his breath, watching as the clouds began to break apart and each separate piece twisted itself into a letter. Then the sky above each stand bore the words ‘SLYTHERIN STINKS’.

The effect was immediate as laughter and cat-calling rang out from three of the stands and in the final stand all the Slytherins were on their feet protesting loudly. Peter was laughing so hard that he had fallen off his seat and was curled up on the floor. Sirius was grinning like an idiot and joining in with the chant of _‘Slytherin Stinks’_ that had started up...or he may have started it, Remus wasn’t quite sure.

By the time that the letters disintegrated back into cloud form then twisted into bits once more and arranged themselves to say ‘MALFOY WEARS A HAIRNET’, Professor Dashwood had got order on the pitch and the match was back underway; although this time with a lot of red faces from the Slytherin team. Lucius Malfoy appeared to be particularly angry, judging from the way he kept flicking his long hair over his shoulder.

Remus chanced a quick look at the Professors stand and was surprised to note that most of them didn’t seem particularly concerned. Slughorn, as head of Slytherin, looked furious but was being calmed down by an amused looking Dumbledore who was patting his arm and pouring him a glass of something or other.

“I told you it would be okay!” Sirius slapped Remus on the shoulder and then leant down to pull Peter to his feet. “Welcome to the Marauders, Mr Lupin!”


	5. Chapter 5

The high that came from a good prank, well done, followed Sirius for over a week. It was the best one they’d done yet and as a result The Marauders had grown by one and _Lupin_ had become _Remus_. Even better was the fact that everyone had known it was them but no one could actually prove it, although Sirius was sure that both Slughorn and McGonagall had tried their best. The Slytherins had promised retribution; Sirius’ cousin Bella had even gone so far as to put her promise in writing and owled it to him. He, James and Peter kept getting claps on the back from the older Gryffindor boys and people from Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw kept going out of their way to talk to them.

Even though he hadn’t had any part of the attention the other three had received - and he claimed to be very happy that he hadn’t - Remus _had_ slotted easily into the group. James and Sirius were best mates, there was no question of that, and then came Peter who was always more of James’ friend. Now Remus kind of fitted into that same space but for Sirius. It worked out well. When James and Peter were off stalking Evans, Sirius could now stay behind and pester Remus which proved to be so much more fun than watching Evans pick her nose.

So all in all, life was going pretty well...until the letter arrived from his mother.

He recognised the seal on the back as soon as the letter landed in front of him at breakfast and he automatically glanced across the Great Hall to see if Regulus had one as well. He started a bit when he realised that his brother was staring very intently at him with a look of almost worry on his face. A quick scan of the table in front of Regulus showed that he didn’t have a letter and a slight tingling sensation started on the back of Sirius’ neck, which only grew stronger when he looked further down the Slytherin table and saw Bellatrix, Narcissa, Malfoy and a few of their cronies nudging each other and smirking at him. Sirius knew that they’d promised some sort of revenge but they wouldn’t have...surely...?

Sirius snatched up the letter and shoved it into his bag then, telling his friends that he’d forgotten his homework for Herbology, he hurried out of the hall and headed back to his dorm. Only when he was seated on his bed in the empty room did he remove the letter and place it on the bed in front of him. For long moments he only stared at it before finally, with a deep breath, he picked it up, broke open the seal and unfolded it.

Sure enough, someone had written to his mother to tell her about the events of the quidditch match and how they were sure he was behind it. The words in front of him were in his mother’s familiar hand and were full of hate and anger. It detailed how she should have killed him when he was a baby rather than be humiliated by his _Gryffindor_ behaviour and how she was ashamed to admit he was her son. They weren’t new words; in fact he’d heard them so many times since he was first sorted that if he concentrated he could probably hear her voice saying them. But that never made it hurt any less.

He’d read through the letter at least three times before he felt it; a slight burning sensation on his hands that was getting more intense by the second. He dropped the parchment and stared in disbelief as his hands started to turn red, the pain getting worse as blisters started to appear on his skin. She’d cursed the letter and Sirius didn’t know if the tears he could feel on his face were from the pain or the fact that his own mother had done that to him.

The letter suddenly burst into flames and Sirius kicked it off the bed before running to the bathroom for water but once he reached the sink the pain in his hands was so bad that he couldn’t grip the taps. He tasted blood in his mouth and realised that he was biting his lip to keep from screaming and had broken the skin.

By this time his legs were shaking so badly that they refused to support him anymore and he collapsed onto the bathroom floor. He lay there shaking and unable to move, the pain from his hands blocking out everything else until he eventually passed out.

****

He woke to someone shaking him, the movement jostling his hands and causing him to cry out as pain shot through them and up his arms.

“Christ, Sirius!” The person said and then he heard them get up and move away.

He wanted to call them back, ask them for help but he couldn’t make his throat work. It was okay though, a few moments later the footsteps were returning and then the person was next to him once more, holding his head up and pouring something into his mouth.

“It’s a pain potion. Swallow it; it’ll make you feel better.”

Almost immediately the pain began to subside. Not entirely but enough that Sirius could stop biting through his lip and open his eyes. “Remus?” he croaked.

“Yes. Remus.” The other boy gave him a tight smile, lines of worry around his eyes. “Can you move enough to make it to the hospital wing?”

Sirius nodded and then gritted his teeth as Remus pulled one of Sirius’ arms over his shoulder and helped him to his feet. His legs still felt a bit wobbly.

“What the hell happened?” Remus asked as they made their way down the stairs and through the portrait hole. Sirius just shook his head and refused to answer.

Apparently deciding not to push his friend for a reply, Remus instead filled the journey to the hospital wing with a steady stream of chatter. Telling Sirius how he’d missed the entire Herbology lesson and, as Remus had a free period, he’d told James and Peter that he’d look for Sirius whilst they were in Ancient Runes.

Madam Pomfrey took one look at Sirius’ hands and started muttering about boys messing about with potions and Sirius didn’t bother to correct her. Remus gave him a sharp look at that but he didn’t say anything and stayed with Sirius while his hands were put into bowls of Murtlap Essence which gradually healed the blisters and soothed the rest of the pain away.

The silence was broken when James and Peter came bounding into the room, demanding to know what had happened and crying out for blood...or at least revenge. Sirius told them that it had just been a spell he’d been experimenting with that had backfired on him. He _would_ get revenge on whichever cousin had written to his mother, but he would do it on his own because his friends just wouldn’t understand.

Remus obviously still didn’t believe him but he kept his silence once more. Peter just shrugged and sat down next to Remus while James had given him a strangely shrewd look but then changed the conversation to the upcoming Hogsmeade weekend.

Eventually the three boys left to grab some lunch before the afternoon lessons started and Sirius dozed for a few more hours before he was allowed to leave and go back to the dorms.

He pretended not to notice Regulus hiding in an alcove outside the hospital wing.

The others weren’t back from classes yet so he quickly checked for the burnt letter or scorch marks but found neither; his mother always knew how to cover her tracks. Sirius then cast a Scourgify on the bed to clean it and flopped down on top of it with a book that he stole from the stack next to Remus’ bed. He had carefully avoided thinking about the curse his mother had mailed all day and he wasn’t about to spoil that by letting his mind wander now.

By the time the sound of feet stomping up the stairs towards the dorm sounded, Sirius was frowning at the pages of the muggle book; it was not his cup of tea at all.

“Remus, why do you have such girly books?” he asked as the boys entered the room.

Remus looked over in surprise and then rolled his eyes as he saw the book Sirius was holding. “I’ll have you know that that is a classic novel not a girly book. You just have no appreciation for literature.”

He walked over and plucked the E. M. Forster book from Sirius’ hands, returning in to its original place in the stack and then began rummaging around in his trunk.

“It’s about a whiney girl looking for a bloke to marry while on holiday,” Sirius protested, “It’s a girly book.”

“It’s not about a whiney...it’s about class difference and...oh, never mind.” Remus’ voice was muffled as he hunted through the trunk, eventually emerging triumphant with another book which he handed to Sirius. “Try that one instead, but look after it; it’s one of my favourites.”

“Treasure Island.” Sirius looked at it warily. “There are no whiney girls in it are there?”

Remus sighed, “It’s about pirates.”

James, who’d been quietly sniggering throughout the ‘girly book’ conversation perked up at that. “Pirates? Really?”

Sirius clutched the book to his chest, protectively. “Back off, Potter. I got it first.”

Peter, who looked thoroughly unimpressed, frowned. “It’s still a _book_ though. Don’t you read enough of them for class? You don’t want people thinking that you’re as strange as Remus...no offense, mate.”

“Oh, none taken,” said Remus dryly, causing Sirius to laugh for the first time all day.

Sirius jumped up so that he was standing on the bed. “Watch your mouth, Pettigrew, you scurvy seadog!”

Peter looked taken aback but James immediately grabbed a wooden potions spoon from his pile of school items and held it in front of him like a sword. “Careful, Captain Black. You challenge my first mate, you challenge me.”

“Oh ho! Looking for a fight, eh, Captain Potter?” Sirius scoffed and then, with a loud yell, he used the bed curtains to swing off the bed so that he landed on James, sending the both of them crashing to the floor.

Remus and Peter looked at each other over the top of the boys wrestling on the floor and then they broke into smiles, grabbed their own potions spoons and started sword fighting with them. Pretty soon the ‘fight’ spilled out of the dorm and down into the common room where quite a few other boys joined in and eventually it became a fully fledged game with teams, actual tactics and some sneakily cast spells here and there.

It was late by the time the game finished and Sirius collapsed exhaustedly onto his bed. He’d had a highly enjoyable evening and made a fine job of distracting himself from the events of the morning. Even so, he hadn’t been able to completely cast it from his mind so his wasn’t entirely surprised when he drifted into sleep and found himself face to face with his wolf.

****

Remus awoke with a start and just stared into the darkness above him. It was still disconcerting to have pleasant dreams about the wolf; he’d hated and been scared of it for so long. Almost every dream he’d had about it until recently had been different versions of the time he’d been bitten. He didn’t remember the actual event at all, the doctors at St Mungos claimed that his brain had blocked it out because it was too horrifying; instead his imagination filled in the blank space and sometimes they got so bad that Remus wondered just how much more horrifying the real memory _could_ be in comparison.

These new dreams were scary in a completely different way. He would never be bitten again but he could bite someone and the need that he felt to make Sirius a pack-mate in these dreams was strong. The magic forcing them together was real and that terrified Remus because he would rather die than turn someone into a monster like him, but now he worried that the choice may be taken out of his hands.

He sighed deeply. He knew that he wouldn’t be getting any more sleep tonight and, after dreams of running through the forest, the bed felt constricting. Lighting his wand, he picked out a book from beside the bed and put on his robe before exiting the room as quietly as he could heading towards the common room with its comfy sofas and warm fire.

He was about two chapters into his book when he heard another person moving around and a few minutes later Sirius joined him on the sofa. Remus shifted up to make more room but stayed quiet; if Sirius wanted to talk, he would. It took another chapter before he did.

“I’m sorry.” The words were said so quietly that an ordinary person would’ve missed them.

“What on earth for?” Remus asked.

Sirius didn’t stop gazing into the fire. “The dreams, they’re my fault,” he mumbled, “It’s like Dumbledore said, I needed someone and so I made this happen.”

Remus snorted. “I also recall Dumbledore saying it was my fault, on two separate levels, so if you think about it I’m more to blame.”

Sirius refused to be placated though. “If I wasn’t so bloody scared...”

A day earlier Remus probably would’ve laughed at the idea of Sirius being scared of anything. The boy could face down McGonagall in a temper and that _took_ some doing, but after seeing what had happened to Sirius earlier the idea wasn’t so funny anymore. He just wished he knew what had been behind it.

“It’s okay to be scared, Sirius.” Remus deliberately kept his voice gentle but Sirius just gave a humourless laugh.

“So scared that you summon a werewolf to be your protector?” He raked his hands through his black hair roughly and sank back into his thoughts.

Remus watched him carefully for several minutes before deciding to just ask, “What happened this morning?”

Sirius had been so lost in his thoughts that he actually jumped at the softly spoken words. He turned his head to look at Remus and the boy had to bite back a gasp at the pain he saw in those gray eyes before Sirius shuttered them over with an ease that made Remus wonder how many times he’d had to do it before.

Clenching his jaw Sirius looked back towards the fire without answering so Remus asked again. This time Sirius took a shuddering breath and said, “I got a letter, that’s what happened.”

Remus thought back and vaguely remembered Sirius receiving some post before he left the Great Hall that morning. He also remembered how James had watched Sirius leave with a concerned face before glaring towards the Slytherin table.

“From your brother? Your cousins?” He guessed.

Sirius shook his head. “No, although I don’t doubt that one of my cousins had something to do with it.” He exhaled angrily at that, “The letter was from my mother.”

Remus closed his eyes in understanding. Even he had heard about Sirius’ parents and no one had forgotten the howler Sirius had received after being sorted into Gryffindor. His mother’s screaming voice had echoed around the hall and shocked every single student into silence.

“She wasn’t particularly happy with my behaviour recently.” Sirius gave another one of those bitter laughs, “Not that she’s ever really been happy with my behaviour but it's become worse over the past few years. _‘I’m an embarrassment to the family name, should’ve been drowned at birth like an unwanted kitten...’_ ”

Remus’ heart clenched in sympathy as he realised Sirius was actually quoting her. What type of mother said that to their child? He thought about his own mother who had never once stopped showing her love for him despite what he was. He couldn’t even begin to imagine what Sirius’ childhood must’ve been like in comparison.

Sirius propped his elbows on his knees and dropped his head into shaking hands. “The letter was nothing I hadn’t heard before but that’s all it was supposed to be, just words. That’s the only thing she can use against me here. I’m safe here.”

Remus suddenly felt as if a bucket of ice cold water had been dropped over him. “Merlin, she sent something with the letter...” he breathed.

“Why send something with the letter when she could just curse the letter itself?” Sirius raised his head and gave Remus a look of utter misery.

For a moment Remus could only stare at him in horror then he jumped off the sofa and threw up in a nearby bin. In his mind he could clearly recall the state Sirius’ hands had been in, they’d looked as if they had been held in a cauldron of boiling water. Christ, Sirius had passed out because the pain in them had been so bad and his _mother_ had done that to him!

Sirius was immediately behind him rubbing his back as everything he’d eaten that day decided to rebel against his stomach. “As delighted as my mother would be by this, I don’t think she meant to punish you too.”

Remus sat back on his knees and wiped the back of his hand across his mouth, pleased to note a spark of genuine humour in Sirius’ eyes. Anything was better than the despair of moments before.

He didn’t know what to say. He wanted to tell Sirius that it would be okay, that if they told the professors they could help him but he remembered that this was the _Blacks_ they were talking about. He realised the professors probably already knew about Sirius’ home life, or had at least guessed. He also realised that if anyone tried to do anything about it things would only get worse for Sirius.

So instead he said, “Feel like getting back at your cousins?”

That surprised an actual laugh out of Sirius. “I thought you’d sworn off pranks, Remus.”

“Ah, but this won’t be a prank,” Remus said loftily, getting to his feet and moving back to the sofa, “This will be the revenge of a friend, a far nobler pursuit, Mr Black.”

“Well, who am I to stop you from noble pursuits, Mr Lupin.” Sirius smirked for a moment but then it morphed into a self conscious look. “Um...could we keep it just between us though? James...he doesn’t...um...he won’t...”

That’s when it suddenly clicked into place. Sirius didn’t need a werewolf protector as much as he needed someone to talk to. Someone who understood about weaknesses and secrets and darkness.

“I think this plan has to be pretty devious so they can’t trace it back to you this time.” Remus told him, “And if there’s one thing James Potter isn’t, it’s subtle.”

Sirius smiled at him gratefully and they both settled back into the cushions, each lost in their own contemplation of the strange situation they had found themselves in.


	6. Chapter 6

The next morning at breakfast Sirius was being purposely boisterous and Remus noted that he was carefully keeping his eyes averted from the Slytherin table. Remus was himself struggling against the urge to glare in that particular direction but was following Sirius’ lead and not giving them the satisfaction. They would get their comeuppance soon enough...well, when he and Sirius thought up a suitable revenge plan anyway.

Sirius was just re-enacting a particularly good move from the pirate fight the night before, almost upending Peter’s pumpkin juice and gaining glares from the girls sitting a few seats further down, when the owl post arrived and another letter dropped in front of Sirius. His eyes flickered to Remus’ briefly then he picked up the envelope and turned it over. They both breathed a sigh of relief at the absence of the Black family seal. Remus heard James doing the same thing and thought that perhaps he would understand a bit more than Sirius believed.

Sirius hesitated in opening the letter but then James grabbed it out of his hands before he could decide to leave again. A move Remus felt grateful for he wasn’t sure he could cope with finding Sirius collapsed somewhere on his own again.

“Who’s sending you mail then, Sirius?” James said loudly, “Is it a love letter? Have you been cheating on us, Black?”

Remus caught sight of Lily rolling her eyes further down the table and had the brief thought that if she actually knew what was behind some of James’ play acting she might change her opinion of him. But then, he hadn’t realised it until the past couple of weeks so _she_ didn’t have a hope.

“Oi! Give that back! I know you fancy me, Potter, but stealing my things is not the way to get my attention!” Sirius cried but he only made a half-hearted attempt to get the letter back.

James ripped open the envelope and, after a brief pause, in which three of the Marauders waited for something to happen while the fourth kept munching on his breakfast oblivious, he cleared his throat.

“ _Mr Black..._ ” he began to read, “ _Your extra Transfiguration lessons will begin tonight at 7 o’clock. Do not be late and please pass this information on to Mr Lupin. Professor McGonagall...._ Hey! What extra lessons?” James looked from Sirius to Remus and back again.

“Detention?” asked Peter, looking confused.

“What can I say, lads? My darling Minerva will invent any excuse to get close to me. Isn’t that right, Remus?” Sirius winked at Remus who nodded gravely.

“Theirs is a forbidden love.”

Peter snorted and returned to his sausages while James continued to look at the two boys suspiciously.

Sirius smiled far too innocently in James’ direction and then stood up. “Come on, it’s potions first thing and Remus has some more cauldrons to blow up.”

“Hey!” Remus stood as well.

Peter grabbed one last sausage to eat on the way and looked at Remus. “He does have a point.”

“I didn’t blow up a cauldron last week.”

“No, just the contents.”

They all continued out of the Great Hall and down the corridor towards the dungeons with Sirius, Peter and eventually James, teasing Remus while he pretended to be indignant and above it all.

****

“Mr Lupin. Mr Black. Please take a seat; we have a lot to get through.” Professor McGonagall looked up as they entered the candlelit classroom.

She waited until they had taken their seats. “Now the point of these extra lessons is to advance your learning in the subject of Transfigurations. The idea is that by teaching you lessons now that you normally wouldn’t learn until the sixth or seventh year, it will push you that much further in your overall education and give you a head start on your fellow students when it comes to choosing a career.”

 _A career?_ Sirius started to fidget in his seat. This was beginning to sound like an actual lesson. He hadn’t signed up to try and get a better job, who cared? That was ages away.

“Now, you have been learning cross-species transfiguration this year and have both been performing admirably,” she continued and Sirius hid a smile when he remembered his reaction to the compliment Dumbledore claimed she’d given him. _Performing admirably_ was much more like it, “So I feel it best if we could complement those lessons by learning human transfiguration during these extra sessions.”

“Human transfigurations? Such as when you can turn into a cat?” Remus had deliberately worded his question so as not to say the word ‘Animagus’ and McGonagall gave him an approving look. This confirmed to both boys that Sirius’ guess had been correct, although Sirius had pretty much known it was after Remus had admitted that werewolves didn’t attack animals; only humans.

“Well that is definitely a form of human transfiguration, Mr Lupin, but as that particular spell is against the law for underage wizards I am unable to teach it to you.” She replied and Sirius chuckled under his breath at McGonagall’s equally carefully worded answer.

“Perhaps, Professor,” Sirius began, “if it’s not too rude for us to ask, you could show us your transformation? It might get us into the right frame of mind.”

Sirius gained an approving look of his own as McGonagall said that she couldn’t see a problem with that request, she often showed the first years during their very first lesson after all.

“Now watch carefully, the two of you. I’m going to do this as slowly as I can to give you some idea of the level of concentration needed for these types of spells.”

McGonagall moved from behind her desk to stand in front of them and closed her eyes behind her glasses. Her focus was turned entirely inward absorbed on the task in hand before her body morphed and a tabby cat stood in the place she had been.

“Fantastic!” breathed Sirius. He had forgotten just how impressive that was and could barely contain himself over the thought that he may be able to do that himself soon.

“Thank you, Mr Black,” McGonagall said drolly once she had turned back, “Now, do you have any questions to ask about what you have just seen before we move on to what else I will be teaching during these sessions?”

Sirius grinned at her. She had just opened the door for them to find whatever they needed to know about Animagus. Who knew she could be this sneaky?

Remus, wearing his own small smile of admiration, quickly asked if she’d had any control over what animal she became. When McGonagall shook her head and explained that the animal form depended on the witch or wizard’s personality and traits, Remus nodded and took some notes. Sirius knew that he was wondering if Sirius’ form would be something that the wolf would allow as a pack-mate. How ridiculous would it be to go through all this and find out that his animagus form was a seagull or something?

Sirius shook himself out of those thoughts; he obviously wouldn’t be a seagull. It was based on his own personality so he would probably be a mountain lion or something like that. Sleek, gorgeous and dignified, perfect for the proud Gryffindor that he was.

The rest of the lesson passed quickly, each of the two boys trying to cram as many questions in as they could with Remus taking copious amounts of notes. McGonagall had seemed to spend the two hours torn between her usual brusque manner, impressing on them over and over how dangerous the spell was and a sort of unwilling amusement at how attentive and excited Sirius was considering his usual attitude in her classes.

Sirius considered it one of his finest moments when he actually managed to make her chuckle in response to a question before she could stop herself. In the face of his resulting smirk, McGonagall had glared at him over the top of her glasses but he was unrepentant. He’d made McGonagall laugh, James would never believe it.

He felt a quick twinge when he thought about James. He was suspicious about what Sirius and Remus were up to, appearing almost hurt that every time he asked about it during the day Sirius would just make a grander and more ridiculous allusion to McGonagall’s secret love for him. It had gotten to the point where James had barely talked to him over dinner, making Sirius feel really guilty. But, even if he was allowed to tell James about the Animagus thing, it would lead to awkward questions as to why they were doing it. He wasn’t ready to tell James about his mother yet. He wasn’t sure if his pride would ever allow him to be.

Finally the lesson drew to a close and Sirius and Remus packed up their things to head back to Gryffindor Tower. Before they left however, McGonagall said that she needed to rush off and deal with something and asked that they make sure that classroom door was closed properly as they left. Then she practically ran out of the room.

Sirius gave Remus a confused look; it wasn’t as if it was going to take them more than a few minutes to collect all their belongings and leave. “That was kind of weird.”

Remus hummed his agreement and glanced around the room as if he could find an answer to McGonagall’s sudden odd behaviour. His mouth suddenly quirked in a wry smile as he nodded his head towards McGonagall’s desk. It was usually clear of all objects, unless the professor was demonstrating a spell, but it now held two books which had been left very carefully in the middle of the space.

Wandering over, Sirius picked them up. “’Guide to Advanced Transfiguration’ and ‘Wandless Magic version 4’” he read aloud.

He opened and checked the index of both books and sure enough they both had sections on Animagus. He grinned at Remus, pushed both books into his bag and they made their way out of the room with Sirius making a bog show of making sure the door was closed properly behind them.

When they walked into the common room Sirius spotted James and Peter involved in a game of wizard chess on their usual table at the far end of the room. He dragged Remus over to them and plonked himself down on one of the other chairs.

“Who’s winning?”

“Peter’s cheating.” James didn’t lift his head from where he was frowning at the board.

Peter laughed. “Knowing how to play isn’t actually cheating, you know.”

James made a dismissive sound and instructed his knight to take Peter’s rook. He then pinned Sirius with an unreadable look. “How was the _extra lesson?_ ”

Sirius winced internally and saw Remus cast a worried look between him and James.

“Yeah, Sirius, did McGonagall declare her undying love for you yet?” Peter asked.

“Not yet, but it’s just a matter of time.” Sirius winked at him.

“So what are the lessons for anyway?”

Sirius manfully held in a sigh as James refused to let go of the subject. “Honestly? She seems to think that we could use the extra training to help our careers or something.”

He shrugged carelessly. It wasn’t really a lie. McGonagall _had_ said that, but then she was lying...the whole thing was becoming very confusing actually.

“Careers? You’re in the fourth year.” James pointed out.

“You know what professors are like; _‘it’s never too early to start thinking about life after Hogwarts.’_ ” Remus interjected and Sirius was a little impressed at the ease with which Remus twisted the truth. “Remember how bad it got when we were picking our extra subjects last year? Also, I think she’s using this as a means to keep Sirius out of trouble.”

“That sounds about right.” Peter snorted.

Sirius could tell that James wasn’t completely convinced but was willing to let it go for now and went back to his game while Sirius talked Remus into a round of exploding snap.

****

The ban from quidditch was over and Sirius was at the weekly practice. As much as he loved the game, relished being on his broom and the tingly feeling in his arm when his bat connected with a bludger, his heart wasn’t quite in it. Instead he was worried about the upcoming full moon.

It had been two weeks since his night time confession to Remus in the common room and there had been two more dreams since then. Each time he and Remus had ended up sitting in front of the common room fire, going over what details they already had about the animagus spell and how many blanks in the information they still needed to fill.

Sirius wasn’t stupid, he knew that to do this right or the consequences could be dire, it would take a long time. It may even be years before he would be able to take animal form. Until then they still had to make it through the full moon without Sirius wandering into the forest to find the wolf or the wolf killing himself, and therefore Remus, in an effort to get to Sirius.

Dumbledore had sent Sirius a message asking him to visit once practice was over, so Sirius guessed he had an idea of how to help _him_ , but when it came to Remus all anybody could do was wait and hope. Sirius had never been any good at waiting for anything.

It was a little crazy how they had become such good friends so quickly, it was hard to remember that just four weeks before they had barely talked to each other beyond pleasantries and now Remus knew things that he’d never even confided in James about. It went beyond being forced to keep secrets together, although he was sure that that had helped speed up the process; he genuinely enjoyed hanging out with the other boy. It was different to hanging out with James and Peter, he didn’t feel like he had to compete with him and he didn’t have to pretend that his family’s attitude didn’t affect him.

Sirius felt like kicking himself at the thought that he could’ve had this friendship since the first year if he’d just made a bit more effort to get Remus out of his shell. The idea that he could lose it, due to the very reason he got it in the first place, hurt more than he’d like to admit.

Eventually the practice finished so, after one last pep talk and a trip to the showers, Sirius headed back to the castle to go and see Dumbledore.

James caught up with him in the entrance hall. “Where are you headed so fast?”

Damn! He thought he’d left quickly enough to avoid James. “Kitchens. I thought I’d get Remus a hot chocolate or something.” Sirius quickly lied and then realised that wasn’t such a bad idea.

“Why?” James frowned at him. “He can get it himself.”

“He’s not feeling well.” Sirius rolled his eyes at James. “Because of...you know...” He waved his hand in a vague motion towards the sky.

“His furry little problem?” James supplied.

Sirius laughed. “Oh, I am definitely going to be using that.”

“You know he goes through this every month, right?” James pointed out.

Sirius crossed his arms across his chest defiantly. “Well he hasn’t had us every month.”

James gave him an odd look and then shook his head. “Fine, but pick up some cookies or something for the rest of us.” Then he headed off back to the tower with his broom slung over his shoulder.

Sirius waited until he was out of sight and then headed in the other direction towards Dumbledore’s office. The note had contained the password, _‘curly wurly’_ for some odd reason, so it took no time at all until he was knocking on the headmaster’s door.

“Come and have a seat, Sirius. I won’t keep you long,” Dumbledore said as he answered the door, “Help yourself to some sherbet lemons.”

Sirius grabbed one of the sweets and settled in.

“As you know, I have been a little concerned about the full moon tomorrow night and how it will affect you. We can’t have you running around the castle and getting stunned again, I don’t think your head would thank me when you woke up.” Dumbledore chuckled. “But I have managed to come up with a solution. It was quite a simple one really and has been staring me in the face the entire time.

“During the last full moon you were dreaming of trying to reach Remus so I think a dose of Dreamless Sleep potion will probably put a stop to that happening this time.” He shook his head ruefully as if irritated that he hadn’t thought of it before.

“What about Remus? Have you come up with anything to help him?” Sirius asked around the sweet in his mouth.

Dumbledore sighed. “I’m afraid that there was never any chance that we could come up with something to help Remus when he’s in the wolf state. All options to calm the wolf have already been tried over the years. The only thing we can do is take care of the boy in the morning.”

They both fell silent, each worrying about Remus Lupin and feeling hopeless in the face of his predicament.

Breaking the silence, Dumbledore moved back to the subject of Sirius. “I am fairly certain that the potion for you will work but I don’t want to take any chances tomorrow night so you will spend the night in the hospital wing. Once we can see if it’s successful this time, you will be able to take some of the potion to your dorm on full moon nights.”

Reaching into his pocket the headmaster removed a vial of bright orange liquid and placed it on the desk. “Now this potion is something rather different. I know just how inquisitive your other dorm-mates are and I don’t want to pique their curiosity about why you are suddenly missing again on the same night as last month. I would like you to drink this before you go to sleep tonight. It won’t harm you but it will give you spots on your body that mimic Morbilli-virus for which you will need to be under Madam Pomfrey’s care.

Of course, you will need to pretend to be aching and tired but I don’t imagine that will stretch your acting abilities too far.” He peered at Sirius over his glasses, eyes twinkling merrily.

“I think I can manage that, Sir.” Sirius smiled back. He would have to be in the hospital wing all day which meant that, as well as being there when the nurse brought Remus back from the shack, he’d a have a day off from his lessons.

As if reading his thoughts, Dumbledore grabbed a sheaf of parchments from his desk drawer. “I’ve taken the liberty of collecting class notes from all your professors for tomorrow. We wouldn’t want you getting too bored all day.”

Sirius laughed and took the parchments from Dumbledore as well as picking up the vial from the desk before standing and bidding the headmaster good night. He took his time walking back to the tower enjoying the quiet in the castle and called into the kitchens for Remus’ hot chocolate as he passed. Sniggering at the way James’ head lifted up from his homework expectantly as Sirius walked through the portrait hole and, with a poked tongue in his direction for good measure, he tossed his friend the small bag of cookies the house elves had given him before heading up to the dorms.

“Hey, how are you feeling?” He asked the pale looking Remus, who was lying on his bed reading through his homework notes while wrapped up in a large pile of blankets.

“A bit cold actually. You couldn’t turn the heat up a bit could you?” Remus asked, indicating the wood burner in the middle of the room.

“How can you still be cold? You’ve got about thirty blankets on you.” Sirius mock grumbled as he added a log to the burner.

“Don’t know.” Remus shrugged, still looking as his notes. “I always am the night before.”

Sirius grinned and said “Well it’s a good thing I’m here then.”

He pulled out the flask of hot chocolate and summoned two mugs to pour it into, gaining a truly happy and grateful smile from the other boy. Sirius handed Remus his drink and sat down next to him, tugging at some of the blankets so that they were both covered.

“Not that I’m not thankful but you don’t have to look after me, you know,” Remus commented, looking at Sirius with an amused smile, “I’m not a girl.”

“You could’ve fooled me.” Sirius quipped, earning himself an elbow in the ribs.

“So what did Dumbledore want?” Remus asked, after a quick glance at the door to make sure no one was around to listen in on their conversation.

Sirius smirked. “To give me Morbilli-virus.”

Remus choked slightly on the mouthful of hot chocolate he’d just taken. “What?”

“Not the actual disease, idiot!” Sirius laughed. “Just a potion to make me look like I’ve got it and then I can spend the night in the hospital wing.”

Remus shook his head ruefully. “The Great Sirius Black covered in purple spots. It doesn’t bare thinking about.”

“I know! It’s a crime against nature. I should look gorgeous at all times.” Sirius agreed while Remus chuckled. “But unless I want McGonagall to stun me again...”

“What’s Pomfrey going to do to stop you wandering away? Strap you to the bed?”

Sirius waggled his eyebrows. “Well dear old Poppy’s not my beloved Minerva, but if she likes to get kinky who am I to say no?”

“Oh, Merlin!” Remus cried. “I did not need that image in my head!” He franticly rubbed at his forehead with his free hand as if he could somehow take Sirius’ comment away.

Sirius laughed so hard at the horrified expression on Remus’ face that he had to put his drink down on the bedside table in case he spilled it.

“Sirius, what the hell have you done to Lupin to make him look so scared?” James asked as he walked into the room with Peter at his heels.

The question set Sirius off into more gales of laughter as Remus muttered about permanent mental scarring.

“Talking about McGonagall again then?” Peter asked.

“My love is not meant for one woman alone, Pete. I was telling Remus here that I was considering branching out from my Minnie and letting some other ladies have a taste of Sirius Black.”

“Oh shit! He’s talking about himself in the third person again.” James looked worried while Remus gave a whimper and rubbed at his forehead even harder and Peter made a gagging motion.

Sirius sniffed. “You’re all just jealous that I’m appreciated by the older woman.”

“You’re completely delusional.” Remus stated.

“You’re completely...stupid!” Sirius retorted, at which point Remus pushed him out of his bed.


	7. Chapter 7

Having forgotten that he’d taken Dumbledore’s potion the night before, it came as a bit of a shock when Sirius looked in the mirror the next morning to find purple dots all over his face. So much of a shock, in fact, that he let out a completely-manly-and-not-girly-in-any-way scream before he remembered.

He heard the sound of bare feet running towards the bathroom and just had time to pose himself before his dorm-mates burst into the room. Lounging against the countertop, with one palm pressed against his head he groaned, “I don’t think I’m very well.”

James, who hadn’t had time to put on his glasses when he heard the screaming, stepped closer to peer at Sirius’ face and then recoiled when he saw the spots. “Morbilli-virus! How the hell did you catch that?”

Sirius made a _woe is me_ face as he shrugged and winced from the supposed pain that movement caused to his supposedly aching shoulders. He also shot a quick glare at Remus who seemed to be struggling to hold back his laughter at Sirius’ performance.

“Well I’ve already had it so I can’t catch it again. Have you both had it before?” James asked. Peter nodded his head and Remus pointed out that he didn’t get sick. “That’s okay then, it’s just Sirius.”

“Just Sirius?” Sirius yelled, forgetting about his supposed bad head momentarily, “What do you mean it’s _just Sirius?_ It’s okay for me to be sick?”

“Calm down, mate.” Peter said, staring at him wide eyed.

“I just meant that we won’t all be in the hospital wing.” James kept his voice soothing as if approaching a startled animal which caused Remus to make a strangled noise in his throat and leave the room. _The traitor._

“Hospital wing?” Sirius asked pathetically.

James nodded and kept his voice at the same calm pitch. “Yeah, come on. Me and Pete’ll walk you down and Madam Pomfrey can look after you.”

Sirius nodded mournfully and let the two boys lead him out of the dorm. He shot a wink to Remus over their heads and Remus had to hold a pillow over his face to stifle his laughter.

Madam Pomfrey’s acting had lacked Sirius’ style when she took him off James and Peter’s hands but she did bring him a tray piled high with breakfast so he was magnanimous enough to let that slide and flirted with her until she rolled her eyes and left him alone. Belly full and with nothing better to do, seeing as he had conveniently forgotten his class notes, Sirius settled himself against the plumped up pillows and started to read that book Remus had lent him about the pirates, which he had remembered to sneak into his robe.

“I’m glad to see that Long John Silver can hold your attention.” Remus’ dry tone startled Sirius awake and he was surprised to see that the sky was darkening outside the windows.

“S’good.” He pulled the still open book off his pillow. “S’just that I get sleepy if I read laying down.”

Remus chuckled. “Well it’s a good thing that tiredness is a symptom of Morbilli-virus because I’m not sure that your atrocious acting could’ve sold it for much longer.”

“Hey!” Sirius tried to glare at his friend but he was too warm and comfortable to give it the force it really needed. “I’m a t’rific actor.”

“Mmhm.” Remus patted Sirius’ arm. “Don’t bother waking up too much, Poppy just sent me over with your sleeping potion before I head out to the shack. They’re really putting you to sleep? That’s the big solution?”

“S’Dreamless Potion.” Sirius told him as he sat up to drink it.

Remus looked a strange mixture of astonished and disappointed. “Oh! That’s so simple!”

“I know.” Sirius sniggered. “Dumbledore seemed upset that he hadn’t thought of it before.” He lay back down as a fresh wave of drowsiness washed over him. “See you t’morrow?”

Remus gave him a tight smile. “Bright and early.” Then the smile turned a little evil as he leaned closer and whispered. “By the way, James and Peter visited you earlier and played connect the dots on your face. I just thought you should know.”

Sirius was far too tired to much more than give an outraged grunt and pawed at his face before he fell asleep to the sound of Remus laughing.

He woke up to the sound of Remus in pain.

Sirius was awake immediately, hardly surprising considering the amount of sleep he’d had, and looked over towards the bed in the corner. Madam Pomfrey was making soothing noises at Remus while struggling to hold the boy still so she could work.

Sirius hopped out of bed and padded over there, stopping short when he saw the mess his friend was in. Remus was biting through his lip in pain and his eyes were fixed, unseeingly, on the ceiling above him. There were scratches on his face and some really nasty ones on his bare torso that were deep and still bleeding. His hair was clumped together with blood just above his left ear which looked as if it had been torn partway off and there was bruising covering most of his right side. It was Remus’ right leg that really caught Sirius’ attention though; it was lying at a weird angle that shouldn’t be possible and every time Madam Pomfrey went near it Remus would lash out with his hands to stop her.

At the sound of Sirius’ gasp the healer looked up and stared at him for a moment before saying, “Well seeing as you’re out of bed, you might as well help.”

She instructed him to grab hold of Remus’ wrists and hold them down above his head, which took quite a bit of effort as the boy was a lot stronger than he looked.

“He must’ve banged up his hip pretty badly because it didn’t transform properly and now his femur’s out of the socket,” Madam Pomfrey told him as she run a diagnosis over the area with her wand, “Keep a strong hold of his hands because pushing it back into place is going to hurt...a lot.”

She made some more soothing noises at Remus as she moved her wand into just the right position above him and then made a swift flick with it. There was a loud crunching noise as the bone moved back into place and Remus arched off the bed with a very hoarse and pain filled cry. Sirius struggled to keep Remus’ hands pinned down, his eyes shining with sympathetic tears.

As Remus collapsed back on the bed exhausted and making small gasps of distress, Madam Pomfrey moved to inspect the other injuries. Sirius let go of Remus’ wrists at her instruction and sat on the bed near the pillow so that he could calm Remus by murmuring nonsensical words and stroking the back of one of his hands, which he held in his lap.

Noting how Sirius kept watching what she was doing and seeming to sense his need to know, Madam Pomfrey gave him a running commentary of the injuries she was working on and the reasons for them. Scratches and a torn ear from claws when the wolf turned on itself, broken ribs and bruising from where the wolf had thrown itself at the walls trying to escape, bruised vocal chords from the constant howling and the screaming during the transformation...

She said these things in a detached tone but Sirius could detect the note of horror under her words and saw the occasional kind look she threw at him. He couldn’t believe that Remus went through this much pain every month. He couldn’t believe that he’d ever thought it was _cool_. His determination to complete the animagus spell grew as he realised how much easier the full moons would be on Remus if the wolf had the pack-mate he longed for.

Sirius now grasped what Dumbledore had been trying to get them to understand the month before. Both boys were broken and haunted and, no matter how it had come about, the spell that bound them together wasn’t really a curse rather it would ultimately make both their lives that much better.

****

When Remus got back to the dorm that night, Sirius was already there; spot free and rambunctious. He had a quill in his hand and was drawing on Peter’s face in apparent retaliation for the connect the dots game the day before. Peter was grumbling but holding still and eating a biscuit while James - who judging from the _‘wanker‘_ which was written on his forehead had already been through Sirius’ chosen form of retribution - was polishing his broomstick...and eating biscuits.

“Where are _my_ biscuits?” Remus asked as he walked to his bed and, with a slight wince, settled himself against the headboard.

“Remus!” Sirius jumped up. “You’re back!”

“Thank bloody Godric!” muttered Peter as he went to stand up.

“Don’t you move! I’m not finished with you yet!” Sirius pointed a finger at Peter. Remus tilted his head to the side and could now see a moustache curling above Peter’s top lip and a little ink goatee.

“Why are you just sitting there and letting him do that?” he asked the two boys.

James chucked a custard cream to him as he answered, “He said we had to because it would cheer you up...and some other nonsense about defiling the Greek god-like wonder of _his_ face.”

Remus blinked. “Oh. Well thanks, I feel much cheered.” He took a bite of his biscuit as James nodded.

“I am here you know?” Sirius pointed out. “Stop talking about me as if I’m not.”

“We couldn’t possibly forget that _you_ are in the room, Sirius.” James said dryly. “Merlin, I think I preferred it when you were all sick and needy.”

Sirius shot a smug look at Remus that clearly pointed out how good his acting _had_ been despite Remus’ disparaging remarks and Remus couldn’t help but give a quiet laugh. He had a vague recollection of Sirius holding his hand that morning as Pomfrey worked her usual magic on his injuries and had been a little worried that he would be uncomfortable around Remus now. It was nice to know that hadn’t happened.

“So why are you back so late, Remus?” Peter asked. “You’re usually back in time for dinner aren’t you?”

“He was probably hanging around and mooning over Pomfrey.” James snorted. “Oh hey! Mooning! Like the moon!”

Remus groaned but he wasn’t sure if it was from the bad joke or yet another awful image about Poppy being put in his head. Peter and Sirius, however, seemed to love the joke.

“Mooning.” Sirius laughed. “Mooning Moony!”

This started off a chorus of _Mooning Moonys_ being cooed at him, prompting Remus to threaten disembowelment if they ever called him that again.

Once the laughter had settled, Peter and James looked at Remus expectantly for an answer to the earlier question but before he could speak Peter tilted his head to the side and said, “Hang on, you were late back last month as well weren’t you? You and Sirius both missed dinner because that was when he had his _episode_.” Peter snickered and Remus cursed the boy’s remarkable memory.

He and Sirius shared a look. They could both see the wheels begin to turn in James’ head regarding the timing of both Sirius’ episode and illness.

“Let’s do something!” Sirius announced in an attempt to move James’ thoughts away from where they were headed. “Come on, I’m bored. Let’s scare some first years or something.”

“You’d have to find them first.” Peter pointed out. “They tend to run out of the room when they see you coming.”

“Okay, fine.” Sirius huffed. “Let’s scare the girls or raid the kitchens or something...its Friday night!”

“We could see how much Butterbeer it takes to get us drunk?” suggested Peter, who was always up for raiding the kitchens.

Sirius smacked Peter on the shoulder. “Great idea. Come on, James you up for the challenge? I seem to remember you reaching six bottles last time.”

It appeared that it only took the word ‘challenge’ to draw James out of his contemplation. “It was seven, mate, and one more than you managed.”

“And six more than Pete managed.” Sirius laughed and dodged out of the way of the shoe Peter threw at him. “Plus we haven’t tested Mooning Moony’s drinking skills yet.”

That seemed to make James mind up and he stood, waiting for Sirius to dodge a second shoe which Remus threw at him. “Come on then. We’ll grab some food as well.”

“Uh...James...?” Remus started.

“Don’t worry; we know you’re still recovering,” James interrupted, “You just rest your pretty little head and we’ll bring everything up here, Moony.”

Another round of _‘Moony’_ started up as the three boys headed out of the door sounding like a herd of cows and Remus decided not to finish what he was going to say to James. Instead he settled back and started to count.

He had just reached fifteen when he heard a cry of “Oi Potter! Always knew you were a wanker!” float up from the common room followed by a red faced James running back through the dorm headed for the bathroom. Sirius and Peter reappeared too; the former hanging onto the door frame to keep on his feet while he laughed and the latter with actual tears of mirth running down his face.

“You not going to wash your face, Pete?” asked Remus, smiling at the impressive amount of swearing emanating from the bathroom.

Peter shook his head and wiped his eyes. “No, I’m going to keep it on. Rachel Nichols just told me I look debonair. I could be in there.”

This started Sirius off laughing again.

Remus soon discovered that the challenge with the Butterbeer was not actually how drunk they got, although Peter was hiccupping rather a lot and Sirius was beginning to slur his words. It was the fact that the first person to use the bathroom was labelled a girl for the rest of the night and therefore everyone tried to hold in the need to piss for as long as possible.

They were all seated on Remus’ bed with Sirius next to Remus at one end and the other two propped up against the other. There was a diminished mound of cakes and cookies between them and they were all on their fourth bottle. At this point James and Sirius were both squirming badly enough to make Remus worry about the future state of his bedspread and it seemed to have turned into a battle of wills over which one of them was going to break first. All talking had ceased as the two boys glared furiously at each other, willing the other to crack, while Peter and Remus made a quiet bet on the outcome.

Gradually Remus became aware of a kind of hissing noise which was slowly rising in volume and he realised that Peter was making a whooshing sound under his breath, trying to mimic the sound of rushing water. Remus had to cover his mouth to keep himself from giggling at the pure deviousness of it.

“Fuck!” James suddenly yelled at the top of his voice and he dived off the bed towards the bathroom.

Sirius whooped and punched the air before sprinting after James. Remus tried very hard not to think about the fact that the bathroom only had one toilet and _that_ meant Sirius was probably pissing in the sink. Instead he grinned at Peter and handed him the bag of ice mice that he had left over from his last trip to Honeydukes. “Well played, Mr Pettigrew.”

Peter gave him a smug smile and pulled one of the sweets out of the bag.

“You bet against me?” James had come back into the room and was looking accusingly at Peter.

“This means that you bet against me!” Sirius looked indignant as he climbed back onto the bed next to Remus.

Remus shook his head sorrowfully. “I shall never doubt your bladder again.”

Sirius glared at him and then crossed his arms over his chest with a nod. “As long as we understand each other.” He tilted his head. “And as long as Potter understands that. He. Is. A girl!”

“And a wanker.” added Remus.

“A girly wanker.” Peter summed up and the three of them leaned forwards to clink their bottles together, each taking a long drink as James spluttered next to them.

“You’re supposed to be on my side, Pettigrew!”

“There are no sides when it comes to sweets, James.” Peter said through a mouthful of ice mice.

James made a face. “It’s no wonder you’re so fat.” he muttered and poked Peter in the stomach.

“I’m not fat! I’m debonair!” Peter told him, pointing at the now slightly smudged moustache and goatee that was still inked on his face.

“It’s true.” Sirius nodded. “Nichols told him after you ran screaming from the common room like the girl that you are. Debonair.”

“All he needs is the smoking jacket.” Remus agreed.

Peter looked at him strangely. “Why would I want a jacket that smokes?”

“It’s not a jacket that...never mind.” Remus sighed; they really didn’t understand muggle things.

“You’re weird, Remus.” Sirius snorted.

Remus gave him a wry smile. “So I’ve been told...repeatedly.”

“Anyway...” Peter said slowly, still giving Remus an odd look. “Let’s get back to how Nichols wants my body.”

“Ha!” James poked Peter in the stomach again. “This body you mean?”

Peter batted his hands away. “Stop that, _Miss_ Potter. You’re just jealous because Lily thinks you’re a wanker.”

“That’s Sirius’ fault!” James sulked.

“Actually I think it’s got more to do with you trying to accio a pair of her knickers from the girls’ dorms last week.” Remus pointed out.

“Lily-knickers.” James sighed with a faraway look in his eyes.

Ignoring James, Sirius pointed his bottle in Peter’s direction. “That Nichols isn’t bad looking you know. You should ask her out.”

Despite his earlier bravado, Peter looked genuinely amused at that idea. “I think that would go about as well as when Jamesina here asks Evans out. Everyone knows she fancies you.”

“Jamesina.” Chuckled Sirius before he frowned at Peter. “What? She does not!”

“She does.” Remus said. “She draws your name in little hearts in class.”

“Huh!” Sirius looked intrigued for a moment before shrugging. “You can have her, Pete. I’m giving her to you.”

Remus laughed. “You’re giving her to him? Doesn’t she get any say in it?”

“Hmm...she might protest a bit. Girls are strange like that.” He said thoughtfully. “Okay then, sit next to her at the quidditch match on Sunday. Dazzle her with your freaky way of remembering every play in every quidditch match ever and then _steal_ her from me.” Sirius sat back looking very pleased with his plan.

Peter shook his head in disbelief. “You want me to ‘steal’ her from you by being freaky? I don’t think that’s going to work.”

“It will! It’s genius!” Sirius insisted. “Remus will help too. He can talk you up a bit and for my part, I will try not to make too many spectacular moves that will impress her.”

“I’m not sure.” Peter shifted, a little self-consciously. “I don’t want to look like an idiot.”

“Pete, she’s already seen you with that ridiculous drawing on your face.” Remus reminded him.

“That’s true.” Peter brightened. “Let’s do it.”

“Lily-knickers.” Sighed James.


	8. Chapter 8

James and Peter were both sound asleep by the time Remus climbed into Sirius’ bed on the Sunday night. Sirius was sprawled on his back with one arm over his face but the tension in his body and occasional huffs he was making gave away the fact that he was still awake.

“Are you alright?” Remus asked.

“No I’m bloody not!” Sirius’ voice was muffled under the sleeve of his t-shirt.

Remus prodded him over enough so that he could wriggle under the covers and get out of the cold. “It’s your own fault, you know.”

“Thanks for the sympathy. You can go away now.”

Making a small noise of amusement Remus stole one of Sirius’ pillows, settled down further and waited. He didn’t have to wait long.

“Kicked off the team!” wailed Sirius loudly, making Remus glad that he’d remembered to cast a silencing spell before he climbed in. “What was she thinking?”

“She was thinking that you were too dangerous to allow on a broom.” Remus told him. “In fact she wasn’t so much thinking it as shouting it loud enough for the entire school to hear.”

“Yeah, there was absolutely no need for her to have cast a _sonorus_ on her voice like that.” Sirius grumbled as he finally moved his arm from his face. “And I’m a beater; I’m supposed to be dangerous. It’s my job to hit bludgers at people.”

“It’s not your job to punch Joshua Weatherbourne in the face.” Remus commented.

Sirius flailed his arms almost hitting Remus. “Did you hear what he said about James’ mum? The stupid fucker got what he deserved!”

“I’m not arguing that and I’m sure Mrs Potter is very lovely and would never think of doing that for money...or at all really.” Remus sighed remembering the shouting match that erupted between the Gryffindors and Ravenclaws as a result of Weatherbourne’s comment. “I’m just saying that it probably wasn’t the best idea to leave the game, fly into the announcer’s box and punch him. Especially after Dashwood had already banned you once for hitting bludgers at him.”

Sirius huffed again but didn’t say anything, just glared at the bed canopy as if he could see Dashwood or Weatherbourne reflected up there.

“At least he got banned from doing any more match commentating,” Remus ventured, “I thought McGonagall was going to hex him for a moment there. Plus you know that Poppy won’t heal any injuries from fighting so he’ll be stuck with that black eye for a while.”

“If she had any Gryffindor loyalty she _would’ve_ hexed him.” Sirius pouted. “ _And_ she should’ve stopped Dashwood from kicking me off the team. You know that we’re going to be rubbish if Hutchinson is a beater full time.”

Remus nodded solemnly, they didn’t stand a hope in hell with Hutchinson playing. “What did McGonagall say when she dragged you off to her office anyway?”

“The usual. Unsportsmanlike behaviour...blah, blah...thought I would’ve grown up a bit by now...blah, blah...fifty points from Gryffindor...”

“Fifty? Merlin!” Remus gasped.

Sirius nodded mournfully. “It’s the most I’ve ever lost by myself.”

Clearing his throat, Sirius shifted uncomfortably. “McGonagall also asked how I could hope to perform advanced Transfiguration if I couldn’t control myself for a single quidditch match.”

Remus frowned at how miserable his friend sounded at that. “Well it’ll help that Weatherbourne won’t be around saying stupid things at the time.” he tried to joke.

Sirius didn’t laugh. “She has a point though. All the books say it takes a lot of mental concentration. You can’t afford to get distracted.”

Turning onto his side, Remus looked Sirius in the eye. “Dumbledore wouldn’t have set us onto this path if he didn’t think you could do it.”

Sirius opened his mouth to protest but Remus wouldn’t let him. “You’re probably the most brilliant boy in our year - which is really, really annoying actually because I study loads more than you. The point is that you’re gifted at this stuff and that’s why Dumbledore believes that you can do this. He believes in you and so do I.” He turned onto his back again to avoid the wide eyed look Sirius was giving him.

“You do?” Sirius asked in such a small voice that Remus wondered if anyone had ever said they believed in him before. Probably not considering what he’d learned of Sirius’ family.

Remus nodded firmly. “You can do this.”

“ _We_ can do this.” Sirius corrected and Remus smiled.

“Besides, I’ll have loads of spare time now that I don’t have to go to quidditch practice all the time.” He mused and tried to smile at Remus, but obviously the thought of not playing the sport he loved anymore still hurt too much to let him give much of one.

“If it makes you feel better, you helped Peter get a snog.” Remus said in an amused voice.

“Oh Merlin! Let me guess, Nicholls’ gone off me because I’m mentally unstable.”

“Actually no. She was really impressed that you’d stick up for a friend like that.” Remus snickered. “I think she did it to try and get closer to you. You know, work her way up through your friends until she gets to you.”

“What?” Sirius looked appalled and Remus started to laugh properly.

“She got all dreamy eyed when she watched them pulling you off Weatherbourne then turned around and stuck her tongue down Pete’s throat. I don’t think he knew what hit him.”

Sirius started to laugh as well. “Bloody Hell! She sounds like the mentally unstable one.”

They laughed together for a while as Remus described the shocked look on Peter’s face when Nicholls let him go but Sirius couldn’t be distracted from his quidditch troubles for too long and when the laughter tapered out he gave a big sigh.

“I’m going to miss playing, you know,” he said, “I’m going to have to sit and watch James go off to matches and practices...”

A thought occurred to Remus. “Do you have to actually play to enjoy it?”

“If you’re suggesting that I manage the equipment or something...” Sirius started to get angry, this obviously already having been suggested to him.

“No, don’t be silly.” Remus said.

“Then what?”

Remus turned and raised an eyebrow at him. “Well, they do need a new match commentator...”

****

McGonagall’s words had really shaken Sirius, especially as they came so soon after he’d vowed to complete the animagus spell to help Remus. So for the next month he really made an effort to research everything he could find on the subject and he had even covertly asked McGonagall if she knew any techniques that could help with concentration while performing spells, which had slightly thawed her bad mood with him. It still hurt a bit that the best time to work on the spell was while James was at quidditch practice and Peter was busy with his new girlfriend, pretending not to notice the looks she gave Sirius so that he could get more snogs, but Remus had a knack for bringing him out of his sulks so it wasn’t as bad as it could’ve been.

James was still a bit suspicious of what he and Remus were up to and had taken to running back to the dorms straight from practice so that he could burst into the room and catch them up to something. It got so bad that Remus had set up a ward on the bottom of the steps leading to the dorm. The ward used a strand of James hair and would cause a stone on his bedside table to light up if James walked through it, so that they had enough time to shove their notes under whoever’s bed they were working on. It was quite ingenious really and Sirius was still working on a way that they could incorporate it into a prank of some kind.

Not that there had been much pranking going on during the month. In fact the only excitement at all had been when an entire class of second year students along with their professor had discovered Lucius Malfoy and Rodolphus Lestrange in a compromising position in a storage cupboard.

The story had spread like wildfire throughout the school and had been confirmed when Bellatrix was seen screaming at her boyfriend, Rodolphus, in the Entrance Hall and firing hexes at him. Malfoy’s girlfriend, Narcissa, on the other hand was often found crying in the girls’ bathrooms and hadn’t talked to Lucius since it had happened. Malfoy and Lestrange had both claimed to have been under the effects of some sort of spell or potion, but almost everyone agreed that they were just saying that to get out of trouble.

Nobody seemed to notice the smug look in Sirius and Remus’ eyes whenever they spotted one of the four people affected.

Another full moon was upon them and, after the success of the Dreamless Sleep potion the previous month, Sirius was allowed to stay in the dorms. Although he was planning on setting his alarm early so that he could sneak down to the hospital wing and help Madam Pomfrey keep Remus calm again.

The entire day leading up to the full moon Remus looked tired and drawn and Sirius knew it was because he was worrying. The injuries Remus had been left with after the last two transformations had been bad and despite his protestations that ‘it was always bad and this was no different really’ Sirius knew that he’d been working himself up more and more as the night got closer.

That’s not to say that Sirius _wasn’t_ worrying. For the past couple of days he’d kept seeing the image of Remus crying out in pain on that hospital bed in more and more vivid detail. It had made him snappy and irritable around everyone, except for Remus who he’d fussed over instead; constantly bringing him warm drinks and sneaking him bits of chocolate whenever he looked particularly pale. Remus had shared with him Dumbledore’s proclamation that chocolate should be eaten when ill and Sirius wholeheartedly agreed.

He even learned a warming spell that he could cast on Remus’ bed to help keep him warm on the nights leading up to the full moon. Remus generally grumbled over the mother hen behaviour and kept muttering that he wasn’t a girl but Sirius didn’t miss the way Remus always hid a smile when he said it so Sirius ignored the grumbles. He also didn’t miss the strange looks that James and Peter kept shooting him but he ignored them too.

As Remus left that evening for the hospital wing Sirius watched him go with anxious frown then tried to take his mind off everything by playing wizard chess with James. By the time James had won their third game in a row it was pretty clear that it wasn’t working.

“He’ll be okay, you know.” Peter told him, correctly guessing the reason for James’ unprecedented winning streak.

“Sod off, Pete!” Sirius snapped and stormed up to the dorm, leaving the other two boys staring after him.

He paced around the room a couple of times before deciding that he may as well take his potion and have an early night. It would be better than sitting around wondering if Remus had changed yet and if he was trying to get to him.

Moving the vial that Pomfrey had given him earlier that day from his trunk to under his pillow, Sirius changed into his pyjamas and was just about to climb under the covers when James and Peter came into the room.

“What the hell is wrong with you?” James demanded, “You’ve been in a foul mood for days unless you’re playing fucking nursemaid to Remus.”

“Go away, James.” Sirius growled.

James leaned in close to him. “No I will not go away. I’m not putting up with this shit every month so tell me what’s going on _right now_.”

Sirius shoved him away violently. “Fuck off!”

James stumbled backwards and muttered, “That’s it!” before he punched Sirius in the face.

Sirius put a hand to his throbbing jaw in shock then threw a punch of his own and the argument turned into an actual fight in the middle of the dorm which only stopped when Peter literally dragged Sirius off James, earning himself a black eye in the process.

The three boys sat panting on the floor in the aftermath, Sirius still laying half on top of Peter until he pushed himself off with an angry noise and leaned against his bed instead.

“I like Remus, I really do. He’s a good guy,” started James, “but you’ve changed since you’ve become friends with him and I don’t like _that_.”

Sirius scowled but said nothing so James continued, “The two of you are suddenly thick as thieves and you’re up to something. Don’t tell me you’re not, I know you too well, Sirius, I can tell when you’re plotting. And now, on top of all that, you’re acting like a complete arse with the snarling at everyone and acting like Remus’ lapdog. It’s pathetic.”

“Don’t call me pathetic!” yelled Sirius, hearing the echo of his mother’s voice behind that word.

Peter, seeing that James had hit a nerve, held his hands up a placating gesture. “Not pathetic just...you have to admit it’s weird, mate. One minute we barely talk to the bloke and the next you’re tucking blankets around him when he gets a bit cold.”

“It’s very un-Sirius like behaviour,” James agreed, a bit more gently than before, “You normally wouldn’t give a shit about whether we’ve ‘eaten properly’”

“You still don’t give a shit whether _we’ve_ eaten properly.” Peter muttered, obviously still sore about Sirius stealing the last of the bacon and sneaking it onto Remus’ plate that morning.

Sirius stared down at the floor. “You don’t understand.” he said quietly.

“What don’t we understand?” James asked, scornfully, “That Remus is a werewolf? That he gets a bit tired before the moon and a bit banged up after? We’re not idio...”

“But you didn’t see it!” Sirius interrupted loudly, “A bit banged up? Merlin!”

He raked his hands through his hair and tried to order his thoughts so as to explain his actions truthfully without giving away too much. “I saw Pomfrey bring him back last month, it was...there was all this blood and his leg...” Sirius tried to motion with his hands to explain the sickening sight of that leg. “He was trying to scream, you know? But he couldn’t because his throat was too damaged from all the screaming he’d done during the actual change.”

James cursed under his breath and Peter went pale.

“He goes through that every month,” Sirius clenched his hands to stop them shaking. “and _we knew_. We’ve known since the second year and we could’ve...he went through that all alone and we ignored it because it made us a bit scared to be near a werewolf.”

“We didn’t know it was that bad...” James tried but Sirius shook his head.

“We should’ve. He shared our room for four years and we never even asked if he was okay when he looked rough. I just thought that by doing all this now I could try and make up for it somehow.” He gave a bitter laugh.

James let out a long breath. “Some Gryffindors we turned out to be, huh?”

“Why didn’t you say?” Peter asked.

Sirius shrugged. “I thought if we all started suddenly looking out for him, he’d think we pitied him or something. But that I could probably get away with it because, you know, I’m...”

“Always annoying anyway?”

“Completely over the top?”

“A big girl’s blouse?”

Sirius huffed out a laugh and the other two joined in, the tension now completely dissipated.

“What about the rest of it?” James asked. “You _are_ both up to something.”

Sirius hesitated; he hated the thought of having to lie to James again. Especially after he’d just been so raw and honest about how he felt when it came to Remus’ transformations.

“It’s Remus’ business.” he hedged.

It was; he just neglected to mention that it involved Sirius just as much. James nodded but the look in his eye told Sirius that he was still concerned about it.

The next morning, after the prescribed dreamless night, Sirius snuck to the hospital wing using James’ invisibility cloak with full permission. Then all three boys used their lunch hour to visit with Remus, starting a new post-full moon tradition. The bruises on Sirius, James and Peter’s faces were never fully explained to anyone but Sirius was pleased to note that the other two no longer held it against him when he fussed over Remus and that his chocolate stash always got mysteriously larger around the full moon.


	9. Chapter 9

Over the next few months; Peter broke up with Rachel due to the fact she asked him if he’d ever thought of dying his hair black, much to the amusement of the rest of the Marauders who took to calling him Sirius Junior at every opportunity. Of course this meant that she was free to pester Sirius whenever she wanted.

James decided to resort to underhand methods in his attempts to woo the fair Lily Evans and spiked her drink with some lust potion that he’d bought from a mail order shop, but instead of making Lily throw herself at him it made her hiccup all evening. In retaliation she cast a weird hex that none of them had heard of but that made James’ toenails grow really fast and caused him to jump about yelping in pain until he could kick his shoes off.

Of course there was the annual April Fool’s Day prank for which all four Marauders got three weeks worth of detentions; including Remus who had never been given a detention before. They all agreed that it had been entirely worth it though to see the various suits of armour in the hallways link arms and do the can-can every time someone said the word ‘can’ anywhere near them.

Also, during the course of mopping the corridor floors as part of the punishment, James started up an interesting conversation with a portrait of Claron the Cunning who revealed that there was a tunnel behind the statue of the one eyed witch next to him. It took a bit of flattery from all of them regarding Claron’s exploits but he eventually gave them the password and the four boys used the following Sunday to explore it, discovering to their delight that it led straight into Honeydukes cellar in Hogsmeade.

Eventually the weather got warmer and the end of year exams started to approach. Sirius and Remus were headed back from their last training session of the year with McGonagall on a high as Sirius had finally succeeded in turning Remus into a flamingo.

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen McGonagall look that excited. She almost hugged you!” Remus grinned.

“She was obviously exerting great self restraint because you were in the room,” Sirius said loftily, “Impressionable innocents and all that. She’d have been all over me otherwise.”

Remus laughed. “Yeah, that’s why she doesn’t throw herself at you; to protect me.”

“It’s true!” Sirius insisted, “What else could explain her continued resistance to the Sirius Black charm?”

“I don’t know. Good taste?”

“Hey!” Sirius pushed the sniggering Remus through the portrait hole into the common room. “I should’ve nicked one of your feathers, you git. I could do with a nice posh quill.”

Remus dodged around some third years and continued towards the stairs. “I’m not sure pink’s really your colour, Sirius.”

“Bah! I can pull off any colour with aplomb!”

Remus opened his mouth to retort but came to a complete stop in the doorway to the dorm and stared into the room. Stepping up behind him Sirius looked over his shoulder and cursed under his breath at the sight of James and Peter sitting in the middle of the room staring right back at them. The two of them were surrounded by the notes he and Remus had made as they were researching the Animagus spell, as well as the book Dumbledore had leant them and the ones they’d ‘stolen’ from McGonagall.

Sirius prodded Remus fully into the room and closed the door, casting a silencing spell on it before he exploded, “You’ve been going through my stuff? What the hell do you think you’re playing at?”

Remus uttered a quiet “Fuck!” and sank down onto his bed without taking his eyes off James and Peter.

“What are _we_ playing at?” James yelled back, “Have you any idea how crazy this is? You’re trying to be an Animagus, Sirius!”

“I’m well aware of what I’m trying to do, thank you very much.” Sirius started pacing back and forth in front of the door, his face like thunder.

“So you _are_?” Peter asked, “I mean, you’re really trying to do it? But it’s so...”

“Dangerous,” Supplied James, glaring at Sirius, “And stupid. And _illegal_. And did I mention stupid?”

“You did.” Sirius said dryly.

“Are you going to stop then?” James asked.

“No.”

“For fuck sake, Sirius! This isn’t just another prank, you could hurt yourself! People have died doing this spell!” James shouted, “And you, Remus! How could you help him with this insane...”

“It’s not a prank,” Remus said quietly, “He’s doing it to help me.” He glanced at Sirius who could almost see Remus willing him to play along.

“Oh don’t pull that martyr shit now, Moony!” Sirius turned on him, “I’m not letting you take all the blame for this.”

“Blame for what?” Peter was looking between the two boys.

Remus looked at Sirius with a question in his eyes. Sirius shrugged in response, it was far too late to pretend anymore, James and Peter already knew what they were doing. But Sirius was still too angry at the invasion of privacy to explain, so if Remus wanted to then up was up to him.

Remus gave a big sigh. “It’s our magic. It kind of connected and then the wolf got involved and this...” He pointed to the parchments and books scattered across the floor “...is our way of trying to sort it all out.”

“Your magic connected? How’s that possible?” James asked.

“We don’t know.” Remus admitted. “We just know that we started having the same dream at the same time three or four times a month.”

“Exactly the same dream?” Peter frowned when Remus nodded. “How did you work that out?”

Remus gave a humourless laugh. “Actually Dumbledore worked it out.”

“Dumbledore?” James was incredulous, “Dumbledore knows about this?”

“You don’t really think _we_ figured it all out do you?” Sirius was scornful. “What the hell do we know about this type of magic?”

Peter looked at him. “What type of magic?”

“Old magic. That’s all he told us about it really. That it’s old and powerful and there’s no real way to stop it.” Remus said.

They were all quiet for a moment then James stood and started to pace as well. “What’s the wolf got to do with it?”

Remus closed his eyes and took a shuddering breath before he started to explain about wolf needing a pack-mate which coincided with Remus needing a friend to talk to. Because his eyes were shut he missed the look which James shot Sirius, but Sirius knew James was remembering the fight and what Sirius had said about them ignoring Remus when he needed them.

Remus went on to tell them about the wolf deciding Sirius was his pack-mate and the attempts to get to him on the full moon.

“The wolf is trying to come here?” Peter’s voice had gotten a bit high.

“For Christ’s sake, Pete, it’s not going to _get_ here!” Sirius snapped, “Dumbledore’s put up loads of wards to stop that. The point is that Remus is getting hurt because of the wolf trying to get to me.” He paused and then summoned his courage to finally admit the truth to his friends. “And I could get hurt trying to get to the wolf.”

James and Peter looked at him in shock, while Remus gave him a small encouraging smile. It was Sirius’ turn to explain so he did; all about the ‘episode’, the fake illness and the potion he still needed to take every month. By the time he finished Peter’s mouth was hanging open in disbelief and James had dropped down next to Remus in a state of shock.

“So basically...a bunch of wards and a sleeping potion is the only thing keeping you from being turned into a werewolf and Remus, here, from drowning himself in guilt over it. And even that isn’t stopping Remus from getting more and more hurt every month?” James summed up.

Sirius nodded. “That’s about it, yeah.”

James paused as he thought about that then asked, “How does the Animagus thing stop that?”

“Werewolves don’t attack other animals,” Remus said, “It would recognise Sirius as its pack-mate and stop trying to reach him and Sirius won’t need to get bitten to be near the wolf.”

“That sort of makes sense.” James murmured as he stared into some middle distance. Then he clapped his hands together. “So, how do we do this?”

The other boys looked at him in shock.

“You’re going to help me do it?” Sirius asked him.

James grinned. “More than help, mate.”

Remus shook his head. “No way! It’s bad enough that Sirius has to do it!”

But Sirius was grinning back at James. “Three heads are better than two, Moony.”

“Four.” Peter looked scared but determined. “You’re not leaving me out.”

“No!”

“Come on, Moony,” Sirius wheedled, “I bet it’ll be loads quicker of we all worked on it. We can show them the stuff McGonagall teaches us and they can help us with the rest of the research...?”

“Wait a minute. _That’s_ what McGonagall’s teaching you?” James cried.

Sirius waved his hand dismissively; that wasn’t important right now. “Moony?” He gave Remus his most winning smile.

Remus glared at Sirius and then uttered another quiet “Fuck!”

****

The summer holidays seemed to drag on forever. Another endless round of being paraded in front of ‘eligible girls of pureblood breeding’. Stupid simpering girls who wore far too much make-up and latched onto his arm, gossiping about other stupid people that he didn’t know or care about. He never would have believed that he would begin to think nice thoughts about Evans, but not one of these girls that his mother had picked out for him could hold a candle to her. He was beginning to understand what James saw in her, not that he’d ever tell either one of them that.

He told Remus though, in one of the frequent letters they owled back and forth to each other. Remus claimed it was a just brief blip because Evans wasn’t actually related to him and that he would go back to deliberately annoying her within a day of being back at school, which made Sirius laugh when he read it because it was probably true.

During one of the parties in the first week, Sirius had been rather shocked when the eligible girl of the day slid her hand up his thigh during dinner. Rather shocked may be an understatement, he had jumped so high that he’d cracked his knee on the underneath of the heavy mahogany table and given a small squeak which he had to cover by pretending to sneeze.

His mother’s eagle eyes hadn’t missed it though and Sirius didn’t miss the approving look she gave the girl. He didn’t know what was more disturbing; that a girl he didn’t know and had only grunted at since meeting her, now had her hand somewhere rather higher than his thigh or that his mother condoned such behaviour. Apparently the ‘pureblood’ part was more important than the ‘breeding’ when it came to these girls.

The thing was he knew exactly what his mother was thinking, that he could be literally seduced back to the so-called _proper_ wizarding ways. That a pretty smile and a soft body could finally undo all the damage that that muggle-loving Dumbledore and his sorting hat had caused her family. Sirius could have told her that she was wrong, that he wasn’t that weak, but she’d never listened to what he had to say before so why would she start now.

A plan started to formulate in his head though. If his mother thought that a quick shag was going to cure him of his Gryffindor ways then she was going to be proven very wrong.

This was how he ended up in a cloakroom with the girl later that night, getting a thorough snogging and a hand job. _Still Gryffindor_. Also, how during the next party he wound up in a bathroom with another girl on her knees giving him a blow job. _Still think blood purity is utter bollocks_.

So it went on for most of the summer. He would get dragged to meet some haughty cow, put on his most charming smile, dig out his flirtiest lines, disappear with the girl for an hour or so and then reappear with a smirk and absolutely no inclination to curse random muggles.

The initial feeling of one-upmanship, not to mention the excitement of actually getting to do these things, started to fade pretty soon though. It wasn’t until a party at the McNair’s during the last week of the summer that he figured out why.

He had been paired up with a girl a few years older than him and had ended up having sex with her, _actually going all the way_ , in a darkened bedroom of the mansion. It was awkward and squishy and over far too quickly, but at the same time not quickly enough.

Afterwards the girl lit them both a cigarette and, after Sirius got over his epic coughing fit, said, “Well that was nothing to write home about. We won’t be seeing each other again.”

Then she went back to the party and Sirius was left feeling that it would probably have been a lot better if had been with someone he liked, who wasn’t a total bitch and whose name he actually remembered. That it _all_ would’ve been better with someone like that.

Not that that stopped him from owling the rest of the Marauders as soon as he could to crow about his sexual prowess. James sent a note back calling him a fluky git, Remus told him that he was pleased for him but could he please stop sending him letters at three in the morning as the owl made his father fall out of bed and Peter requested _more details please_ ; something that Sirius was only too willing to provide on the train ride back to school. He just had to wait for Remus to show up first.

“Are you _sure_ that you saw him in the station?” he asked James for the fifth time after poking his head out of the compartment to check the corridors again.

With a put upon sigh, James nodded. “He said he had something to do and that he’d meet us in this carriage. Then he ran off somewhere.”

“What in the name of Godric takes this long?” Sirius threw himself back on one of the seats. “It’s a train! There aren't many places he can go. Maybe I should go and look for him...”

“Don’t go...look, just tell us about this bloody girl before Peter explodes and then tell Moony about it later.” James said in an exasperated tone, although he looked as eager to hear about _The Sex_ as Peter did.

“I don’t want to!” whined Sirius, “I need a proper audience to wow. It won’t be the same if I just tell him later.”

“For Merlin’s sake!” muttered James, “Fine, we’ll...” He trailed off as Remus fell in through the compartment door.

“It about bloody time!” yelled Sirius, jumping to his feet. “Where the hell have you been? I’ve got stories to tell! Very important stories!”

Remus, who’d looked a little nervous and jittery when he first entered, gave a small chuckle at that. “I’m so very sorry to postpone the tales of your sexual exploits. I’m guessing that’s what the _very important story is?_ ”

Peter nodded excitedly with a sort of lecherous grin that freaked Sirius out a little.

James, however, wasn’t paying them any attention. His attention was focused entirely on Remus’ robes. “What. The fuck. Is that?” he asked pointing a finger at Remus’ chest.

Remus started to look nervous and jittery again. “Oh yes...well...um...”

“They made you a prefect?” James asked and then started to laugh uproariously.

Peter started to giggle as well. “You’ll have to take points off yourself every time we plan a prank.”

Sirius grinned. “No, this is going to be great. We’ve got a prefect in our pocket. It’s like a...an open door to mayhem with no consequences.”

“I’m not in your pocket!” Remus protested, “And there will be no mayhem! I’ve got to be responsible now.”

This set James off into even more fits of laughter.

“I’m serious. I can’t do pranks anymore.” Remus looked very glum at the prospect of losing that when he’d only just found it. “I can turn a blind eye to any small stuff that you lot do but anything bigger and I will have to take points off you or give you detention. Lily’s already given me a lecture on distancing myself from you.”

“Lily?” James suddenly stopped laughing.

“She’s the other prefect and apparently she thinks you’re all a bad influence on me.” Remus told them.

“Can’t think why.” Sirius snorted.

“Lily’s a prefect?”

“Yes! So if you act up and I don’t do anything about it then she’ll be telling me off at all the prefect meetings!” Remus said, “She’s quite scary when she gets all professor-like. She’s like a mini-McGonagall.”

Sirius slung his arm around Remus’ shoulders. “Don’t worry about it, Moony. We’ll come up with some way we can keep her off your back and let you keep pulling jokes with us. We’re the Marauders after all.”

They had a name, that’s how good they were.

Remus gave a groan and he sank down onto the seat with Sirius. “That’s not really what I meant.”

“If Lily’s a prefect, can she give me detentions?” James had yet again lost track of anything else once Lily’s name was mentioned and started firing questions at Remus.

“Yes.”

“One on one detention?” James waggled his eyebrows.

“No.”

“And you get to go to meetings and stuff with her all the time?”

“Well not _al_ l the time.”

James made a humming sound and tapped his chin with his finger. “Can I borrow your badge?”

“No you...why...? You do know that it’s not the actual badge itself that makes me a prefect right?” Remus asked.

James crossed his arms defensively. “It could do. It _is_ a magic school, you know.”

“Can I borrow the badge?”

Remus turned to look at Sirius. “Why do _you_ want the badge?”

Sirius shrugged. “Scare some new first years.”

“Ooh!” Peter said, “That’ll be fun.”

“No, you can’t borrow it,” Remus said somewhat wearily, “What did I just tell you about me not doing pranks anymore?”

“Oh come on, Moony!” Sirius knew he had to stop this responsibility nonsense before it really got started. “We’ve only got a couple of weeks before they figure out who the _actual_ prefects are. Imagine how many little Slytherins I can order about in that time.”

“No, Sirius.” Remus started rubbing at his forehead as if he had a headache setting in.

“We won’t do it when Evans is around.” promised Peter.

Sirius nodded at that. “If she finds out you can tell her we stole it.”

“Tell her I stole it.” James interjected.

“Yes, you can tell her James stole it and that you had no idea about any of it.” Sirius nudged him with his elbow.

Remus sighed. “Firstly, she really can’t give you one on one detention, James...” James looked sulky at that. “...and secondly, ignorance isn’t an excuse.”

“But ignorance is bliss.” Sirius said.

“That’s not even a proper argument.” Remus threw his arms in the air.

“Fine! Pettigrew, sit on him!”

Before Remus could move out of the way he had a lapful of Peter holding him down while Sirius forcibly took off the badge and, after a brief scuffle with James over who was going to wear it, pinned it to his own robes.

Flinging open the compartment doors, he roared, “Oi, first years! Front and centre!” and then he ran off down the corridor with James and Peter hot on his heels and Remus chasing a bit further behind colourfully cursing Sirius and any future offspring he may have.

It was good to be back at school.


	10. Chapter 10

Sirius had been right, the Animagus spell was definitely moving along a lot quicker with James and Peter helping. Remus was still trying to talk the other two out of actually doing the spell themselves but deep down he knew it wasn’t going to work. Even Peter, who was so terrified of the spell going wrong that he had obsessed over the pictures of half man-half animals until the other three had confiscated the spell books from him, seemed determined to see it through. Although Remus knew that had more to do with trying to impress James and Sirius than actually wanting to do it.

In fact things had been going so swimmingly - they now had managed to get the entire spell written down and about eighty percent of the ingredients had randomly appeared under one of Sirius or Remus’ pillow or been ‘conveniently’ left out somewhere in McGonagall’s classroom - that it came as a bit of a shock when they hit their first major stumbling block. Even more of a shock because it was a section that they had all dismissed as easy, although in hindsight _meditation_ wasn’t really something Remus could see any of the other three managing easily.

In the general notes of concentration techniques McGonagall had given Sirius the previous year, she had included a section on meditation with a note claiming that he wouldn’t actually need it because it was only used by people attempting the Animagus spell, but that it may be useful to know the mechanics of it in case it came up in any exams questions. Her sneakiness was continuing to impress Sirius to the point that he’d mentioned proposing a number of times now and Remus couldn’t tell if he was still joking or not.

The basic idea was that the person used meditation to clear their heads and hearts and _speak_ to their inner animal. It wouldn’t tell them what animal they were going to be, they wouldn’t know that until the spell was actually performed, hence the danger of it; like that poor bloke who did the spell, turned into a canary and promptly got eaten by his cat.

Instead the meditation would allow them to open a path to letting the inner animal free. The best analogy that Remus could think of to describe it was that it was like using soothing words to coax a frightened creature from its hiding place.

The first attempt had been a complete disaster. All the boys took up the crossed legged positions on their respective beds - or in Remus’ case settled against his pillows with the pile of notes because he wasn’t actually attempting the spell and certainly didn’t want to speak to _his_ inner animal. They then had to close their eyes and breathe deeply in an even and repetitive manner. It was barely two minutes in when Peter started to giggle, which set James off, which made Sirius throw a pillow at him, which started a pillow fight of epic proportions, lasting about an hour.

Finally as all four boys lay on the floor, out of breath and covered in feathers, they decided it may be best to work on the meditation bit separately.

James had been the first to try it again. The others all left him in the dorm and went to do their homework in the common room. After about ten minutes James opened the dorm door, stuck his head out and looked at them all before going back into the room. Then he did it again about ten minutes after that. The third time he did it Remus decided to go and see what the hell he was up to.

“Sirius is going to sneak back in,” James told him, “He’s going to sneak in while my eyes are closed and give me hairy feet or something.”

Remus looked at him in disbelief. “How are you this paranoid? You sleep in the same room as him and that doesn’t bother you.”

“I’ve been booby-trapping my curtains since the first year,” James told him seriously, “After that time he made me think I’d wet the bed but really he’d just dripped water on me while I was sleeping.”

“Okay.” Remus couldn’t help but wonder what the booby traps were but pushed it aside to deal with the problem at hand. “Remember that ward I set up that told me and Sirius if you were going to burst in on us? How about I cast that again but this time the stone will light up if _Sirius_ comes up the stairs?”

James nodded eagerly so Remus collected a hair from Sirius’ hairbrush and went off to do just that.

Thirty minutes later James came down to the common room with a pouty look on his face. “I spent so much time checking to see if the stone lit up that I couldn’t concentrate.”

Remus rolled his eyes, pulled out his wand and gave James hairy feet just on principal.

The next day was Sirius’ turn to have a go. Remus kept looking up the stairs during the game of chess he was playing but Sirius wasn’t sticking his head out like James had. In fact a good two hours passed before the door finally opened and Sirius walked down the stairs with a satisfied look on his face.

“You did it?” asked James.

“Well I started but I couldn’t get comfortable,” Sirius began, his face falling a little, “so I made the bed thinking that would help, then I noticed that my part of the room really is very messy...”

“Oh Merlin.” Remus groaned under his breath.

“So I thought that I’d probably be able to concentrate a bit better if I had a nice tidy area to meditate in.” Sirius concluded.

“Okay, so basically, you _cleaned up_ instead of meditating?” Remus asked to make sure that’s actually what he’d heard.

Sirius gave him a proud smile. “ _And_ put my books in alphabetical order.”

That weekend marked the first Hogsmeade weekend of the year, so the boys decided that it would be better for Peter to attempt the meditation before he got all jittery on sugar from Honeydukes. Which is why they were spending the Saturday morning sitting in the almost empty common room, restlessly waiting for Peter to appear before they could head to the village for the rest of the day. Remus’ expectations had already been significantly lowered at this point so when Peter did appear wearing his own satisfied smile, Remus didn’t get too excited.

“Did you manage it?” he asked.

“Er...no.” Peter’s smile began to dim a bit.

“Please don’t tell me you alphabetised your books too?” Remus sighed.

Peter’s face started to get a little red and he fidgeted on the spot. “No.”

Sirius tilted his head a little and took in Peter’s demeanour. “Oh Godric! You had a wank didn’t you?”

“Well, it’s not often that I get the room all to myself...” Peter defended himself, “...and James magazine was just laying there...you know, under his mattress.”

“My magazine?” James’ voice got a bit squeaky.

Remus stood up while they were all squabbling, calmly put on his coat and scarf and headed out of the tower, leaving them all to it.

He was almost at Hogsmeade by the time Sirius caught up with him. “On a scale of one to ten, how mad are you right now?” Sirius panted as he stopped running and fell into step alongside Remus.

Remus shook his head. “It’s not a joke. This is how the spell went wrong all those times, because the wizards weren’t concentrating.” He came to a stop and turned to Sirius with a stern look. “None of you seem to get how dangerous this is...well Peter does but his desperation to join in is overriding his common sense. But you and James are treating it like it’s just a big joke, like the worst that could happen is detention.”

“So...about nine then?” Sirius said.

Remus threw his hands in the air in exasperation and strode away, determinedly heading towards the shops.

Sirius chuckled and run after him, throwing his arm over Remus’ shoulder. Remus tried to shove him off but he wasn’t having any of it. “Moony, we get how serious this is. Really,” he added when Remus gave him a disbelieving look, “It’s just that this bit is so...stupid. I feel like an idiot sitting there concentrating on _breathing_.”

Remus was forced to admit that he’d probably feel like an idiot too, but that didn’t change the fact that it was an important part of what they had to do and he told Sirius so.

“I know,” sighed Sirius, “I was thinking that maybe if it wasn’t such a... _thing_. You know with a certain time set aside to do it and everyone else knowing what you’re up to. That maybe if we just tried it on our own, before we go to sleep one night or if we have a free period with no one else around...”

“That actually makes sense,” Remus said thoughtfully, “It would certainly stop James being so weirdly paranoid about you.”

Sirius laughed. “I know! Booby traps! It’s not even as if I’ve tried to do anything to him in his sleep for years. I grew out of that when I was eleven. Although if he’s that screwy about it...” He trailed off thoughtfully, no doubt concocting something to do to James before something caught his eye and he straightened up. “Oh crap!”

Suddenly Remus felt Sirius grab his arm and found himself being dragged in the opposite direction. “What the hell are you doing?” He tried to plant his feet and stop but Sirius just tightened his grip and kept pulling him along.

Finally they came upon a small alleyway next to ‘Dervish and Banges’ and Sirius shoved Remus down it before following, holding a finger to his lips indicating that Remus stay quiet. Remus scowled at him and made a show of straightening his coat where Sirius had grabbed him but he did as he was told. After a couple of minutes Sirius slowly looked around the edge of the alleyway and out onto the street.

He gave a sigh of relief. “I think she’s gone, thank...”

“Hi, Sirius!”

Sirius’ eyes grew wide at the interruption and Remus peeked over his shoulder to where Rachel Nichols stood smiling at the back of Sirius’ head.

Remus didn’t even bother to hide his smirk. Rachel had considerably upped her campaign of trying to win Sirius ever since Peter had broken up with her. She was constantly leaving him little love notes in his bag and followed him about the castle. For the past week she had made sure that she sat underneath the Hogsmeade announcement in the common room every day, as if Sirius would look at the poster, then at her and think, _‘You know who I should ask to go to Hogsmeade with me...?’_

“Sirius, didn’t you see me back there? I was waving at you.” Rachel asked.

Sirius winced and still didn’t turn around to look at her so Remus gave her a wide smile. “I’m sure he didn’t, Rachel. If he had he would’ve stopped to talk to you. Isn’t that right, Sirius?”

Rachel beamed back at him but Sirius glared and mouthed _‘I hate you’_ at Remus before turning to face Rachel. “That is right, sorry. I’ve got a lot of things on my mind today.”

Her smile dimmed slightly at the idea that he had things on his mind that weren’t _her_ but she rallied herself. “Well you’ve seen me now.” She gave a little giggle that made Sirius wince again and not quite hide it in time. “I was wondering if you would like to join me for tea in Madam Puddifoots. They have some lovely cakes there.”

Remus sniggered and then hid it behind a cough. Sirius loathed Madam Puddifoots and moaned loudly whenever James dragged them all in there to look for Lily.

Sirius shot him a look to let him know that he’d caught the sniggering then said, “I’m sorry, Rachel, but I don’t think I’ll have any time for that. Lots to do you see.”

After pointedly looking around the alley they were all just standing around, doing nothing, Rachel continued, “It’s only for an hour or so. I’m sure Remus could pick up any shopping you need.”

Remus agreed that he could thus earning himself a kicked ankle, not that that stopped his smirking. It was always fun to see the usually supremely confident Sirius Black wrong-footed like this.

“Uh...no. The thing is...” Sirius trailed off, struggling to find an excuse. But then his face cleared up the way it always did when he got a ridiculous idea. “The thing is that I’m seeing someone else, Rachel, and I shouldn’t really be seen in Puddifoots with someone as attractive as you. Jealousy issues and all that.”

Rachel’s face fell while Remus wondered how the hell Sirius was going to pull this one off.

“But...you’re not...I’d know. I’d know if you were seeing someone.” Rachel protested.

Sirius plastered on a rueful expression. “It’s all a bit hush, hush to be honest. I probably shouldn’t have told you but I didn’t want to keep leading you on.”

Remus smothered a laugh at the idea that running away every time Rachel tried to talk to him could be construed as _leading her on_.

“Who is it?” Rachel asked, “I won’t tell anyone, I just need to know that you aren’t just saying that, you know, to get rid of me or something awful like that.”

Her eyes were beginning to fill with tears while Sirius’ darted about desperately as he obviously tried to come up with a girl’s name he could say without getting in more trouble. He caught Remus’ eye in an obvious plea for help but Remus just gave him a small shrug. He couldn’t think of anyone either. It would have to be someone that was not only willing to play along and help Sirius but who they could get to quickly and fill in on the plan before Rachel confronted them; which Remus was sure she would.

Suddenly Sirius stopped looking so panicked as he apparently hit upon the perfect name. “It’s Remus.” he announced.

You could’ve heard a pin drop in the alley as both Rachel and Remus stared at Sirius dumbfounded.

“W...what? You can’t say...” Remus started once he gotten over the shock.

“Hush, babe.” Sirius smirked as he put an arm around Remus’ waist and tugged him into his side. “I know we said that we’d keep it a secret but Rachel won’t say anything, will you?” He gave Rachel a meaningful look. “You know how much trouble we’d get into if anyone found out, don’t you?”

Rachel nodded mutely at Sirius’ questions but then narrowed her eyes as she took in the way that Remus was struggling to get out of Sirius’ grasp and away from this madness. “It really doesn’t look like you’re together though.”

“Stop it!” Sirius hissed at Remus and then looked back at Rachel. “He’s just panicking because we’ve never told anyone before. It’s all so new and we could get hurt if the wrong people discover that two guys are a couple.”

She still didn’t look convinced, however, as Remus jabbed an elbow into Sirius’ stomach and Sirius tightened his fingers painfully on Remus’ hip to hold him in place.

“Prove it.”

Remus immediately stopped struggling upon hearing Rachel’s demand and stared at her indignantly. “What do you mean prove it? We could both be beaten and put in the hospital wing for what he just told you and that’s still not enough for you?”

He couldn’t believe the stupidity of the girl, that she would be insistent enough to push Sirius into making such a stupid proclamation and still keep pushing. If he got killed over this, Remus was going to haunt her and make sure she _never_ got a boyfriend.

Rachel’s expression faltered at Remus’ tone and words but she lifted her chin determinedly. “Prove it! Then I’ll leave you both alone and promise not to tell anyone ever.”

Remus’ temper rose. “Now listen here, you vapid...”

He didn’t get to finish his insult though because Sirius uttered a curse under his breath then grabbed Remus by the back of the head and smashed their mouths together.

Remus’ arms flailed and he grunted against Sirius in protest, his bottom lip throbbing painfully from the force with which it had been pushed against his teeth. Sirius swept his tongue across the front of Remus’ lips and then dipped into his open mouth.

The touch of Sirius’ tongue to his own sent a sudden jolt of electricity through Remus, his nerve endings suddenly tingling and crying out for more. He gave a gasp and Sirius took the opportunity to deepen the kiss even more, turning Remus in his arms and pressing in closer.

Remus’ eyes fluttered closed and when Sirius sucked his abused lower lip to soothe it Remus gave a moan and surged forward, enthusiastically returning the kiss. Sirius gave a moan of his own which reverberated through Remus’ body. He felt something against his back but it barely registered as he lost himself in the wonderful feelings the kiss was evoking in him.

Finally the sound of a loud gasp penetrated the fog in Remus’ mind and he pulled back. Sirius had him pressed up against the alley wall and at some point one of Remus’ hands had sunk into the hair at the nape of Sirius’ neck while the other had clenched the front of Sirius’ cloak. He stared into Sirius’ eyes which were reflecting the surprise and horror that Remus knew his own eyes were showing.

Over Sirius’ shoulder, Remus could see Rachel who had one hand over her mouth and was staring at them with wide eyes.

She dropped her hand when she saw Remus looking and gave a watery smile but it was a bit on the pathetic side. “I...I’m sorry. I won’t tell anyone I swear.” She stammered and then fled the alley.

Remus moved his eyes back to Sirius’. Neither of them had moved an inch. Remus held his breath, unsure what to do now.

Eventually, Sirius gave a shaky sigh. “Bollocks!” he murmured.

****

To say that things had gotten awkward between Sirius and Remus since Hogsmeade would be an understatement. After they had finally let go of each other and straightened their clothes with a lot of uncomfortable clearing of throats, Remus had suddenly remembered that he had an essay to finish and had run off back to the castle.

Sirius, meanwhile, had hunted down James and Peter in the Three Broomsticks and glowered into his Butterbeer for the rest of the afternoon. His didn’t even flirt with Madam Rosmerta which surprised her so much that she asked James if Sirius was unwell.

After that, Remus never seemed to be around. Sirius knew that he was really, that he’d been helping Peter with his homework and talking James out of trying another love potion on Lily, it was just that whenever Sirius showed up Remus always had prefect duty or he had to go and look something up in the library. It got to be that the only times Sirius saw Remus was in lessons or those times when James called a meeting to see how far they’d all gotten with the spell and then they avoided each other’s eyes.

Rachel, who had obviously been keeping a close watch on them both, had approached Sirius a week or so after Hogsmeade and apologised to him. She seemed to believe that Remus wasn’t talking to Sirius because Sirius had told her ‘what was going on’. She had been very sympathetic and had asked if Sirius wanted her to talk to Remus and reassure him that she was going to keep quiet. Which he had hastily told her wasn’t necessary.

He was quite glad that Rachel seemed to have gotten over the shock and wanted to be friends instead of running back to the castle and bawling to anyone who’d listen. She seemed to be quite pleased at the thought that it wasn’t _her_ that Sirius had a problem with; it was just that he didn’t want any _girls_. Sirius wasn’t sure how he was going to approach that problem when he did start seeing another girl, which he _would_ because the whole Hogsmeade thing had obviously been a weird and freaky occurrence that didn’t mean anything.

It was only in the dead of night that Sirius allowed himself to think about it properly and admit to himself that that connection was what had been missing in all of his conquests over the summer. He hadn’t had even half of the reaction with those girls that he’d had from one kiss with Remus. Sirius had never lost himself so completely that he became unaware of everything apart from the person he was with; he had always been listening for other people approaching or wondering if anyone had noticed he was missing from the party. But in Hogsmeade, Rachel could’ve cast a sonorous and yelled in his ear and he wouldn’t have reacted. The only reason that he’d stopped at all was because Remus had pulled away.

He kept playing the entire thing over and over before he fell asleep. That moan that Remus had given kept echoing in his head and it was driving him crazy that even the memory of one little sound could make his pulse speed up and his dick twitch with interest. Merlin, this was _Remus_ he was thinking about and that bothered him more than the fact he was thinking about another guy. If only he’d kept his stupid mouth shut in that alley then he could be still be hanging out with his friend like he used to instead of having an inappropriate reaction every time he saw him.

Sirius needed to get over whatever this thing was and then he and Remus could go back to being friends. He already desperately missed that friendship and the thought of being stuck in this limbo for much longer hurt. So the first and most obvious solution was to have sex and get the entire thing out of his system. It looked like he’d been right about sex being better with someone you liked so Sirius just had to find a girl that he liked, who liked him and would have sex with him and not tell anyone about it.

It wasn’t as simple as he’d thought. The problem was that Sirius didn’t want a relationship; he just wanted a quick fling that would sort his head out and put him back on the right, non-Remus track. But it turned out that girls, especially nice ones whose company he actually enjoyed, didn’t just drop their knickers for a quick tumble. They wanted romance and flowers and the long haul. It also turned out that Maridean Monroe could hit _really_ hard for such a tiny Hufflepuff and, in his opinion, should’ve been a beater instead of a seeker.

The inordinate amount of apology chocolates he’d had to buy Monroe had led Sirius to his second solution. Apologise to Remus. Maybe the fact that they were avoiding each other was actually exacerbating the problem. If he could get Remus talking to him again then Sirius wouldn’t be spending so much time thinking about how much he missed his friend and obsessing over the reason that they weren’t really friends anymore. Sirius would apologise about the whole thing then they would laugh about how silly it all was and go back to plotting and scheming and possibly conspiring.

So he snuck down the tunnel to Honeydukes and left a pile of galleons in the cellar in exchange for a huge assortment of chocolates, sugar quills, ice mice and everything he’d ever remembered Remus buying for himself. He then left the assortment on Remus’ bed with a note that just said ‘I’m sorry’.

That evening Remus sat next to him in the common room and in a low voice, with his eyes firmly on the wall opposite, said, “You didn’t need to buy me gifts, Sirius. I’m not a girl.” His gaze flickered to meet Sirius’ for a second before moving away again. “Which is where the problem lies really, doesn’t it?” Then he got up and left for yet another volunteered prefect duty.

Sirius clenched his jaw and left the room himself before he hit something but when he walked into the dorm and found the pile of sweets was now sitting on his own bed, he punched the wall as hard as he could.

“What did you do?” James eventually asked a couple of days later as they were doing homework in the library and Sirius struggled to hold a quill in his injured hand.

“Hit something.” Sirius grumbled.

James sighed and shook his head. “Not your hand. What did you do to Moony?”

Sirius’ head snapped up. “What makes you think _I_ did anything?” He asked, “He could’ve done something to me.”

“If that was true you wouldn’t be watching him all the time like a kicked puppy,” James pointed out, “Plus you wouldn’t have bought him all that stuff from Honeydukes.”

“How did you know about...?” Sirius started but trailed off at James’ raised eyebrow. “Fine! I did something, but I’m not telling you what because it’s none of your business.”

“I see,” James said quietly as he crossed something out on his parchment, “Another Sirius and Remus secret...because we haven’t had enough of those.”

Sirius paused. James was right; he’d kept a lot from him over the past year considering that he was supposed to be his best friend. “I didn’t keep secrets from you because I wanted to. You know that, right?”

James shrugged but didn’t say anything.

“I couldn’t tell you,” Sirius told him, “Either Dumbledore forbid it or it was Remus’ problem and not for me to tell.”

“And what about your problem?” James asked, “You could’ve told me what was happening with your family, I’d have underst...”

“Don’t tell me that you’d have understood, James.” Sirius hissed, his eyes flashing fiercely. “I’ve met your parents, there’s no way you could understand what mine are like.”

James looked hurt for a moment but then he slowly nodded. “You’re probably right. But maybe I could understand what’s going on with you now.”

“I really doubt that.” Sirius gave a bitter laugh.

“Try me.”

Sirius sighed. Maybe it would help to get someone else’s perspective on this. Maybe James could figure out another solution, one that would actually work. He glanced around, but there was no one anywhere near them; it was why they always used that particular table in the darkest and dingiest corner of the library, so they could research pranks with no interruptions.

“ _Ikissedhim_.” Sirius said in one rushed breath.

James spluttered and started to choke. “You what?” he asked when he finally recovered.

“It wasn’t...I didn’t...it was a...” Sirius stammered and then took a deep breath to calm himself before explaining to James exactly what had happened in Hogsmeade.

“So you just did it to stop Nichols stalking you?” James asked when Sirius finished.

Sirius nodded. “It gave me a new understanding of what you put Evans through.” He tried to joke.

James grinned wickedly. “Here’s hoping she takes a page out of your book to try and get me off her back. Can you imagine seeing her snog another girl?”

That prompted a small chuckle out of Sirius before he sobered again. “The thing is...I kind of liked it.”

“Kind of?” James looked serious but not like he was disgusted and wanted to punch Sirius which gave him a bit more confidence.

“Okay, I really liked it,” he admitted, “All those girls over the summer; that was about getting off and proving that it would take more than a fuck to make me like _them_.” Sirius didn’t need to explain who he was referring to. “But Moony...”

“But Moony actually means something to you which made it better.” James concluded.

“And it’s confusing the hell out of me,” Sirius agreed, “I like girls. I still like girls.”

James gave him a strange look. “But you like Moony more.”

“As a friend.”

“As more than a friend, Sirius,” James said gently but firmly, “Think about it, you’re different with him than you are with me or Pete.”

“That’s because of the whole magic connection thing,” Sirius insisted, “and because of...” He held up his hands like claws and growled in his best impersonation of a werewolf.

James laughed, shook his head and muttered something that sounded like ‘the Nile’ but Sirius didn’t understand what Egypt had to do with anything so he tilted his head and regarded James critically. “Why aren’t you acting all revolted and trying to hit me?”

“I’ve already almost missed out on one friendship because I _may_ have been ever so slightly prejudiced. You know, against...” James repeated Sirius’ claws and growling routine. “I do learn from my mistakes sometimes.”

Sirius nodded, pleased that James had taken it all so well. “Okay then, Mr Learned Man, how do I get Moony talking to me again?”

James started to laugh again and eventually said, “Just give him time, he’ll come around.”


	11. Chapter 11

The past three weeks had been horrible. Remus hadn’t appreciated just how much Sirius’ friendship meant to him until it was gone and now he was back to sneaking into the shack early on a full moon just to get away from the tension in the dorms. He lay on the dilapidated bed and stared at the ceiling remembering the last time he’d had to wait around for the transformation like this. So much had changed since then and now he was scared that he was going to lose it all.

What the hell had he been thinking, returning the kiss like that? If he’d just stayed motionless until Sirius had finished then Rachel would’ve had her so-called proof and left. Then he could’ve smacked Sirius around the back of the head, yelled at him for dragging him into the whole thing like that and they’d have laughed about it and continued on as they had been. But the truth was that there had been no thought in his head at all, apart from that he wanted more.

More of that feeling. More of that incredible closeness to someone. More of _Sirius_.

He’d definitely never thought about Sirius in that way before and why would he? If Remus had a type then it would be someone like the pretty blonde Hufflepuff who partnered him in potions, who never got mad when he inevitably blew something up and who, since discovering that his father owned a book shop, would ask him to recommend a good book every now and then. It certainly wouldn’t be someone who thought he was the most gorgeous thing to ever hit Hogwarts, who revelled in breaking every rule he could find and who generally leapt about the place like an untrained monkey.

That thought brought with it the memory of Sirius swinging from the candelabra during the pirate fight in the common room and Remus couldn’t help but smile before his stomach clenched painfully at the thought that he may never get to do something like that again. Untrained monkey or not, he wanted his friend back. He missed Sirius and that banter that had come so easily to the both of them. He missed having someone to talk to on the nights when he had one of those dreams and couldn’t get back to sleep, especially when he knew that Sirius was lying awake too.

James and Peter tried their best, constantly dragging Remus places for a game of chess, or to watch James at quidditch practice, or one memorable occasion when Peter had obviously run out of things to talk about that didn’t include Sirius and, in desperation, had asked Remus why the sky was blue, but it wasn’t the same.

They didn’t flop all over him during a conversation as if Remus was their own personal cushion, they didn’t tease him with that spark of mischief in their eye and they definitely didn’t crawl into his bed as if they had every right to be there and demand Remus stay awake and keep them entertained.

They also didn’t make sure he had enough blankets and hot chocolate on the run up to the full moon, or listen with genuine interest when he talked about his favourite stories, or sneak down to the hospital wing the morning after the full moon to help keep him calm when Madam Pomfrey fixed his injuries.

Remus gave a sigh as he wondered if Sirius would be there the next morning, probably not after Remus’ reaction to his apology; especially considering that Remus should’ve been the one apologising. Sirius had just been trying to pull off another one of his stupid schemes and ended up being caught in Remus’ sudden attack of teenage hormones. He hadn’t meant to react badly to the apology but he’d let his already simmering temper get the better of him and ended up making it seem as if Remus blamed Sirius for Hogsmeade whereas really he was just cursing his own bad luck.

The night before the apology, Remus had lain awake unable to stop his thoughts from wandering to Sirius. He’d discovered that keeping busy during the day helped keep him distracted but at night nothing worked and he was helpless to stop the memories of the kiss washing over him. He remembered how his skin had suddenly felt too tight, how Sirius’ hair had felt so incredibly soft in his hand, the way Sirius had sucked at his bottom lip and sent all Remus’ blood rushing south. Finally, when he was hard, panting and laying on his hands to stop them from straying too low on his body to relieve the problem, Remus decided that enough was enough. He had to get over this strange obsession and focus on someone other than Sirius Black.

He had to ask out Maridean Monroe.

Remus had had a small crush on his potions partner for a couple of years. He’d never told anyone, especially not the rest of the Marauders because he knew full well that they would tease him mercifully and then concoct some grand scheme to get her to go out with him that would leave Remus completely embarrassed and Maridean possibly hating him or pitying him. Something along the lines of one of James plans to win over Lily.

He decided that he would take her to one side and quietly ask her. That way if she said no then there would be no witnesses and he already knew that Maridean was much too nice to tell everyone about it. So after dinner he made some random excuse to James and Peter and headed down to the quidditch pitch where he knew the Hufflepuffs had practice. He was about to take a seat on one of the lower benches when he spotted Lily a bit further up and joined her instead.

“What are you doing here?” he asked as he dropped onto the bench.

Lily jumped and turned to look at Remus from where she had been watching the practising players. “Remus! Um...I was just...err...brushing up on my quidditch knowledge.”

Remus raised an eyebrow at her stammering and the blush rising on her face. “Really? So why not watch the Gryffindor team?”

“Because Potter would stop the practice to fly in crazy loops or something if he saw me there.” she told him tartly, but she was still blushing.

Remus chuckled, knowing that would be exactly what James would do in that situation. “So...you’re watching the Hufflepuff team because you can’t watch the Gryffindor team but you still want learn more about the sport you’ve spent past five years you’ve been at this school watching?”

Lily opened her mouth and then closed it again. “Fine! I was watching someone in particular and if you tell _anyone_ about it then I’ll turn your ears into trumpets.”

Remus held up his hands. “I won’t tell anyone, I swear it. I like my ears the way they are.” He gazed up at the players. “So, who are we watching?”

“Terrick VaLoye.” Lily admitted with a small smile and pushed her red hair out of her eyes.

“Nice guy.” commented Remus, although personally he’d always thought that the sixth year boy bore an uncanny resemblance to a certain James Potter but without the glasses and crazy hair. He decided to keep that thought to himself though.

Lily nodded then nudged Remus with her elbow. “How about you? Aren’t you breaking some sort of guy code by watching the enemy?”

“Only if I was watching Slytherin.” Remus told her. “I needed to speak to Maridean about the potions homework so thought I’d talk to her after practice.” The lie fell easily from his lips as he watched the pretty blonde fly back and forth looking for the snitch.

“If she’s not off snogging Black.” muttered Lily.

Remus twisted his head to look at her in shock. “What are you talking about?”

Lily leaned towards him conspiratorially. “I heard from Ellie Williams that Black has been sniffing around Maridean for a couple of weeks now and yesterday he gave her an enormous bar of chocolate from Honeydukes.” She shook her head. “Mari should know better than to fall for the charms of that idiot, but you know how much she loves chocolate...why don’t you know about this? I would’ve thought Black would be regaling you all with tales of his _‘romantic pursuits’_.”

“We’re not really talking at the moment.” Remus said distractedly. Sirius was interested in Maridean? Since when?

“Oh, so you’ve finally taken my advice then? Good, because, really Remus, you could be in with a chance of making Head Boy if those friends of yours didn’t keep...” Lily trailed off when she realised that Remus wasn’t paying attention. She looked at him closely for a moment. “Oh Godric! You like Maridean don’t you?” She clapped her hand over her mouth with a slightly muffled, “I’m so sorry, Remus.”

Remus’ thoughts were swirling. He knew that Sirius and Maridean got on well, having bonded after the disastrous Gryffindor v Ravenclaw match the year before. Weatherbourne had said some rather mean things about Maridean’s abilities in previous matches and she’d fully supported Sirius’ decision to punch the boy; but he’d never shown any interest in her outside of that. Why now? Did he somehow know what Remus had planned and was making a point or did he genuinely like her? If he did like her then how did Remus stand a chance?

He deliberately shied away from thinking about which one of the pair he didn’t stand a chance with.

He slowly realised that Lily was studying him carefully as if worried about what he was going to do. “It’s okay,” he assured her, “I’m just a little surprised that’s all. I think I’m going to go make a start on that homework, I’ll catch Maridean another time.”

Lily gave him a look that clearly showed that she didn’t believe him. “I’ll come with you. We’ve got duty in half an hour anyway.” she pointed out as he tried to tell her that he’d be fine on his own.

The walk back to Gryffindor Tower was strained; with Lily giving Remus concerned looks and Remus trying to stop thinking long enough to give her reassuring smiles. He was glad when they reached the common room and he could escape to the dorm for a little while. That was until he saw the small mountain of sweets on his bed and the small note in Sirius’ handwriting. Then he got angry. Angry at stupid Sirius for spoiling all his plans. He probably got all those sweets at the same time he bought that chocolate for Maridean.

Remus pulled out his wand and levitated the whole lot onto Sirius bed before getting ready for prefect duty and storming back out of the room. He saw Sirius in the common room, stopped long enough to make his deliberately cutting remarks and then went to join Lily who was waiting for him by the portrait hole; her eyes troubled.

It had taken about fifteen minutes of Lily’s deliberately meandering chatter before Remus’ temper subsided and was replaced by a sick feeling. He couldn’t believe what he’d done and said, but it had been too late to take it back.

A sharp twinge in his shoulder brought Remus back to the present. The moon had almost risen and the wolf was beginning to take over.

Then there was nothing else until the next morning and that was a haze of almost unbearable pain. He could hear raised voices but couldn’t tell what they were saying. He tried to ask but when he opened his mouth he just screamed instead. A cool hand pressed against his burning forehead and began stroking his hair. One of the voices had stopped shouting and began to speak into his ear in more soothing tones until a particularly excruciating pain shot out from his stomach and everything went dark again.

He woke with a groan and forced his eyes open. Sirius was sitting in the chair next to the bed looking pale and exhausted but he jumped forward when he saw Remus was awake and grabbed his hand.

“About time you woke up, sleepy head.” he said in a voice that had a slight tremor.

Remus gave him a sleepy smile, happiness filling him as he realised he hadn’t screwed up badly enough to stop Sirius coming to the hospital wing.

“You’re here.” he said stupidly, but he was so tired that he thought he couldn’t be blamed for that.

Sirius huffed out a small laugh. “Where else would I be, moron?”

Remus smiled again and squeezed the hand holding his before he let himself fall back to sleep.

****

Sirius didn’t think he’d ever been as scared as he’d been the morning after that full moon. Following his chat with James, Sirius had realised he’d been right; Remus would come round because the boy was too nice of a person not to. After all he’d been perfectly pleasant to Snape even after that snake had ‘accidentally’ dropped the wrong ingredient into Remus’ potion as he passed causing it to spit fireballs into the air - although Sirius had a sneaking suspicion that the pleasantness was deliberate in that instance. It _had_ been funny to watch the quiet fury in Snape’s eyes after his sarcastic “So sorry, Lupin.” was met with a completely calm “Its fine, Severus. I’ll just start over; I was probably doing it all wrong anyway.”

Not that that stopped the rest of the Marauders using a sticking charm to attach Snape to a dungeon wall in retaliation later that day.

So Sirius decided that he would just carry on as usual and let Remus see that he wasn’t prepared to let _The Incident_ , as he’d begun calling it in his head, get in the way of their friendship any further. It began with making sure that he was ready and waiting in the hospital wing for Remus to return from the shack.

He’d woken not long after the sun rose and immediately grabbed James’ cloak for the trip through the castle. The hospital wing had been empty when he arrived; Pomfrey had obviously not brought Remus back yet so Sirius sat on the bed at the far end of the room and waited. He heard Remus before he saw him as hoarse and broken screams ripped through the quiet. Sirius leapt to his feet and steeled himself, as he did every time, for what he was about to see. But despite the effort nothing could have prepared him for the sight of Remus floating in the air in front of Pomfrey with a large piece of wood completely impaling him through the stomach.

“Black!” Pomfrey yelled as soon as she saw him. “Get over here and move two of these beds next to each other with a bit of space in between so we can lay him flat.”

Sirius did as he was told, pulling out his wand and manoeuvring two of the beds together with a large enough gap for the piece of wood. Once Remus was settled across the two beds, Pomfrey cast a patronus to summon Dumbledore and then turned to look at Sirius. She had to call his name twice before he was able to drag his eyes away from his injured friend.

“This is going to be pretty hard to watch, Sirius,” she told him in a gentle voice, “If you think you can’t handle it, you should probably head on back to your dorm.”

Sirius clenched his trembling hands into fists and shook his head. He had to stay and help, if he didn’t he’d drive himself crazy imagining the worst; imagining that Pomfrey wouldn’t be able to save Remus.

Madam Pomfrey nodded at him and then told him to take up a position on the opposite side of the bed from her. She was just instructing him on where to put his hands to brace Remus when Dumbledore arrived in his pyjamas. Sirius distractedly noticed that they seemed to have little ducks waddling about on them and made a note to tell Remus about that later, then he couldn’t hold back a small gasp as he realised he may not get the chance.

The gasp seemed to have alerted Dumbledore to Sirius’ presence and he gave an enquiring look at Pomfrey.

“Sirius is helping me.” she told the headmaster, giving him a look that dared him to question her.

Unfortunately Dumbledore seemed to be in a daring mood and he turned back to Sirius. “I think you should go back to your dorm, Sirius. I promise that I’ll keep you updated on his condition throughout the day.”

Sirius shook his head again. “I’m not leaving. I can help.”

Pomfrey jumped in. “He’s been really very good after previous full moons, Albus.”

“No, Poppy. I can’t in good conscience let a student be present for this.” Dumbledore told her with a stern look.

Poppy returned the look. “It’s not up to you. This is my infirmary and I say he stays if he wants to. Remus responds well to his presence and we’ll need that now.”

“Sirius isn’t your patient here, Poppy. He’s my student and I will not have him witnessing his friend going through what we must do next.”

Sirius stared at the bickering adults as Dumbledore stood firm on his decision that Sirius leave. Remus was dying didn’t they realise that?

“I’m not leaving him!” Sirius shouted at the top of his voice and shocked the pair into looking at him.

“Sirius...” started Dumbledore.

“No! I’m staying! I _have_ to stay! He needs me!” He glared at the headmaster who looked about to say something else but was stopped when Remus started to scream again.

Immediately, Sirius rushed up to the end of the bed and started to stroke Remus’ forehead and hair in the same comforting gesture that had worked before. He leaned forward and started to talk, keeping his voice as soft as possible; telling him that he would be okay, that Sirius would make sure of it, that he was so so sorry about everything that had happened.

Remus quickly began to calm down and he turned his head into Sirius’ touch. Sirius saw Madam Pomfrey give Dumbledore a look that practically yelled ‘I told you so’ and Dumbledore nodded at the pair of them before he took up Sirius’ previous position, telling Sirius to keep doing what he was doing as the more relaxed Remus was the better.

Sirius continued to murmur anything and everything that came into his head to keep Remus calm but he kept his eyes firmly fixed on what Pomfrey and Dumbledore were doing. Pomfrey explained that the piece of wood was thinner in the back so they had to pull forward, then she held her wand over the place where the wood protruded out of the front. Dumbledore did the same with his wand and when Pomfrey reached a count of three they both slowly and carefully lifted their wands in a vertical gesture.

The wood slid out a couple of centimetres and Remus cried out once more before falling unconscious.

“It’s probably a blessing,” Pomfrey muttered, continuing to raise her wand, “I can’t administer a pain potion until it’s out otherwise the blood won’t clot. Stay where you are, Black, he may wake up again.”

Sirius nodded and kept running his fingers through Remus’ sweat soaked hair as he watched Pomfrey and Dumbledore work. It was a painstakingly slow process; Pomfrey told him that if they moved the wood too fast they could cause a tear an internal organ. It seemed like days later by the time that they were finally done.

Pomfrey quickly ran a diagnostic with her wand, then closed up the wounds with a sigh of relief and, with Sirius holding Remus’ head up, she carefully poured a pain potion down his throat. Finished, she declared that she needed a stiff drink but supposed she’d have to make do with a coffee, before disappearing into her office.

By this time, Sirius was sitting at the top of one of the beds supporting Remus’ head in his lap as he continued to stroke Remus’ hair. He was so intent on studying how pale his friend looked and willing him to wake up that Dumbledore’s voice made him jump.

“I must apologise to you, Sirius. You handled yourself admirably.” Dumbledore took a seat on one of the chairs, looking older than Sirius had ever seen him. “I’m afraid that I argued against your presence because I wasn’t sure we’d be able to...”

“Save him,” Sirius finished when Dumbledore trailed off, “He’s stronger than you think, Professor.”

He flashed a small smile which Dumbledore returned saying, “I’m starting to believe that you both are, Sirius.”

Dumbledore studied the pair of boys on the bed in silence for a moment. “You’ve grown very close, you and Remus. That’s good. I have to admit that I was a little worried at first, you can both be very stubborn and I feared that the magical connection may have made you resent each other rather than bring you together as was meant.”

Dumbledore gave a sudden chuckle. “But I believe my fears were mostly laid to rest during a certain quidditch match last year. That was some impressive magic although I dare say that the Slytherins would disagree.”

Sirius grinned at the headmaster but admitted nothing.

“I’m sure that you’ve realised by now that you and Remus will never have a normal friendship,” Dumbledore continued and Sirius began to feel uneasy at the turn the conversation had taken, “The connection you share and the reasoning behind it mean that the emotions will always run deeper. This doesn’t make the other friendships that you have lesser than the one with Remus, just different.”

James’ words from the library repeated in Sirius’ mind, _‘You’re different with him than you are with me or Pete.’_

“Love appears in many different forms, Sirius. The trick is simply to recognise it when it does appear. In whichever form it may be.” Dumbledore smiled and stood. “Now I think I’d better change into more suitable clothes before starting on the day’s duties. I’ll inform your professors that you will not be attending classes today; I’m sure Madam Pomfrey will appreciate you staying and continuing to use your apparent calming influence on Remus as he recovers.”

Sirius barely heard Dumbledore leave, his mind was focused on what the man had just said. _Love?_ Was Dumbledore suggesting that Sirius loved Remus? Was that what the whole magical connection thing actually did?

Dumbledore had specifically stated that first day that it wasn’t about friendship; that it was about _companionship._ Did that mean they were meant to be together as something more than friends? Because if that was true then they’d always been headed towards what happened in Hogsmeade as there was no way to stop the connection.

He looked down at the face of his sleeping friend and thought about how it felt to almost lose him. There had been a few instances during the morning when Sirius had been sure that Pomfrey wouldn’t be able to save him and the wave of pain at the idea of that had taken his breath away.

He brushed his fingers down the edges of Remus’ face and remembered all the times he’d found excuses to touch Remus since they’d become friends, all the times he’d snuck into Remus’ bed to talk or gone out of his way to get some cakes from the kitchens because he knew that it would make Remus smile. James was right; Sirius didn’t do any of that with him or Peter. He certainly didn’t want to kiss either of them the way he’d been secretly aching to kiss Remus again.

His thoughts were interrupted when Madam Pomfrey returned to give Remus another check up. “He’ll probably be asleep for a while if you want to go and get something to eat.” she told Sirius but he shook his head. He wanted to stay in case Remus woke up. “Get some rest yourself then. It was quite an exhausting morning.” She patted his hand and wandered away again.

As soon as she mentioned it Sirius realised how tired he felt. He still didn’t want to move too far from Remus so he just leaned his head back against the wall and closed his eyes. A persistent poking in his ribs woke him quite a few hours later and he saw a very concerned looking James and Peter peering at him.

“What the hell happened?” James asked, “You weren’t in lessons and Pomfrey wouldn’t let us in here at lunch.”

Sirius stretched a little, taking care not to jostle Remus who was still leaning against him and still fast asleep. “Apparently the wolf managed to break a piece of wood off the door in the shack and skewered himself on it.”

James swore viciously and turned to stare vacantly out of the window.

“It’s getting worse.” Peter frowned down at Remus.

“How bad was it?” James asked but didn’t turn from the window.

“Bad,” Sirius said, “Dumbledore didn’t think he’d make it. He tried to order me out so I wouldn’t have to see it.”

“That was stupid of him,” Peter commented, “Everyone knows that you that you’re like a mother niffler with her cubs when it comes to Remus.”

“Do they?” Sirius deliberately kept his voice pitched low as his thoughts returned to the conversation with Dumbledore again.

“Well not _everyone_ , but we do.” Peter quickly amended while James finally turned from the window and pointedly looked at the way Sirius was curled protectively around Remus.

The boys stayed in the hospital wing for another hour before Pomfrey ushered them out, during which time Sirius carefully extricated himself from the bed to get rid of a cramp that had appeared in his leg and ate some of the food that James forced on him. It wasn’t long after they left that Remus finally woke, even if it was only briefly.

Overcome with a mixture of relief and exhaustion from the whirlwind of emotion that had been his day, Sirius collapsed back into his chair and fell into such a deep sleep that he didn’t even wake when Madam Pomfrey came in to cover him with a blanket.


	12. Chapter 12

Remus had to fight hard to stifle his amusement at Sirius during the walk back to Gryffindor Tower. It had been a week since the full moon and Remus had finally been declared fit enough to leave the hospital wing.

Sirius had barely left his side for the entire week, McGonagall had to make the journey to the hospital wing in person after a couple of days and order Sirius to start attending his lessons again; but even then he had spent the rest of the time with Remus. Even sleeping in one of the empty beds. Pomfrey seemed to have developed a soft spot for Sirius and had been perfectly happy to let him stay which shocked the hell out of Remus but not as much as the fact she had giggled when Sirius declared her the most generous and gorgeous person in the entire school and kissed the back of her hand. _Giggled!_

Now that Remus was returning to the dorms Sirius was alternating between leaping around Remus in excitement and shooing younger kids out their way in case they tripped Remus up or something. Remus made a show of rolling his eyes at Sirius’ antics but really he was overjoyed to have his friend back, even if they’d been carefully avoiding any talk of Hogsmeade and the awkwardness that had followed.

As Remus stepped into the dorm room there was a loud explosion and he was suddenly showered in red and gold sparks. When the he stopped seeing multi-coloured spots in front of his eyes he could make out James and Peter doubled over laughing.

“You should’ve seen your face!” gasped Peter.

Remus blinked some more. “It’s good to see that things haven’t changed that much in a week.” he commented dryly.

When James recovered he walked over and clapped Remus on the shoulder. “Had to give you a proper welcome home, Moony. We made more; want to go and surprise some more people with them?”

“Blind them more like,” Remus grumbled but he was smiling, especially when he saw the anticipation on Sirius’ face, “So who are we going after first?”

“Terrick VaLoye.” James muttered and Remus smothered a smile. He’d wondered how long it would take James to find out about Terrick and Lily.

“VaLoye it is!” Sirius said before giving a loud whoop and running out of the room.

“Do you think he knows where he’s going?” Peter asked, staring at the door.

“Probably not.” sighed Remus and then followed the hollering.

Thirteen pranked students and a loss of twenty house points later, the Marauders had finally called it a night. As soon as James and Peter’s snores could be heard Sirius appeared, shoving Remus further across the bed so that he could climb in and cast the usual silencing charms.

“How’s your stomach?” Sirius asked as he burrowed under the covers and rearranged the stolen pillow to his liking.

“As good as new,” Remus told him, “I’m sorry for scaring you with all of that.”

Sirius huffed. “I don’t get scared! I’m a big bad Gryffindor!” he sniffed haughtily. Remus chuckled in response then they were silent for a few moments, each staring up at the canopy before Sirius said in a small voice, “Don’t do it again, Moony. I don’t think I can see that again.”

Blindly Remus reached out for Sirius’ hand to try and comfort him. “I’ll try not to.”

Sirius squeezed his hand back and silence fell once more because they both knew there was actually no way of telling if Remus would get that hurt again. Gradually Remus became aware that he was still holding onto Sirius and that Sirius was rubbing small circles onto the back of Remus’ hand with his thumb. His breathing began to speed up as he started to get hard and he searched for something, anything to say to distract himself from his rebellious libido.

“How are things going with Maridean?” Remus winced internally. That was not what he wanted to bring up at all.

Sirius’ thumb stopped for a moment. “How did you know...? Never mind, I think she’s finally forgiven me.” The circle movement started up again.

“Forgiven you for what? I thought it was going well, what with the chocolate and all.” Remus said as he tried to ignore the fire that such a simple action was stoking in him.

Sirius gave a small laugh. “The chocolate was so she’d forgive me. Do you think I just go around giving people chocolate willy-nilly?”

“You give me chocolate all the time.” Remus pointed out.

“Yes, I do.” Sirius’ voice took on a low tone that did something funny to Remus’ stomach.

Remus closed his eyes momentarily and then dragged his thoughts back to the conversation. “Okay, so what did you do to annoy her so much that you had to buy her a big bar of Honeydukes’ finest?”

The pause was long enough that Remus thought Sirius wasn’t going to reply but then he said in that same low voice, “I asked her to have sex with me because I thought it would stop me wanting to have sex with _you_.”

Remus inhaled sharply then started to choke on thin air and had to sit up until the coughing fit subsided.

“Not quite the reaction I was hoping for.” Sirius commented as he also sat up and rubbed Remus’ back comfortingly.

The back thing was even worse than the hand thing. He could feel the heat from Sirius’ hand sinking into his skin and had to fight the urge to lean entirely into him. Instead he forced himself to turn his head and look at Sirius. “What _were_ you hoping for?”

Sirius ducked his head and refused to look him in the eye. “I don’t know, maybe for you to say you’ve been going through the same thing.” He shrugged.

He should say that he hadn’t, that would be the wisest decision. Remus figured that things may be a little strained between them but, after the scare in the hospital wing, he couldn’t imagine Sirius letting things get to the level of tension they’d been before then and Remus certainly wouldn’t avoid Sirius the way he had.

But Remus’ wise decisions always seemed to go out of the window when it came to Sirius Black.

“I tried to ask Maridean out last week,” he said instead, “but then Lily told me about the big bar of chocolate...Did you know that all the girls think you bought her that because you’re trying to woo her properly and not because you were apologising for trying to get in her knickers?”

“ _Woo_ her? Did you actually just use the word _‘woo’_?” Sirius teased but gave him a smile that was more than a little hopeful.

“I did,” Remus answered smartly but with a smile of his own, “Because I’m cultivated and civilised.” Then he poked his tongue out.

Sirius burst out laughing and shoved Remus who shoved him back. Then Sirius grinned evilly, grabbed Remus just under the ribcage and started to tickle him.

“Argh! Get off me!” Remus tried to jump away but was hampered by the blankets wrapped around him and ended up falling back onto the bed.

Sirius, seeing an opportunity for a quick victory, climbed on top of Remus and continued the tickle attack for a few minutes before stopping suddenly as he realised the position they were in and just how close his face was to Remus’.

Remus’ eyes grew wide and his erection, which had flagged a bit during all the tickle mayhem, took a definite interest in proceedings again. If Sirius moved even an inch or so he’d be able to feel just how much interest.

But he didn’t move, instead Sirius stared transfixed at Remus for a moment before asking in a husky voice, “Were you going to ask her out for the same reason I did?”

Remus swallowed hard and gazed back up at Sirius. “Yes.”

“Thank Merlin for that!” Sirius muttered before he closed the short distance and caught Remus’ lips with his own.

This kiss was gentler than their last one, with certainly less pain, but it was just as intense. Sirius’ lips were soft against his and so wonderfully warm that Remus automatically pressed closer. The air around them crackled with their combined magic and that’s when it struck Remus that the same connection that had caused the dreams had brought them to this.

It hadn’t been about friendship at all, he’d wished for someone he could fully open his heart to without all the secrets and lies getting in the way and Sirius needed someone to truly love him and heal that damaged place that his family had left inside him.

“You’re thinking too much,” Sirius whispered, every movement causing his lips to brush against Remus’, “I think I should be insulted.”

Remus smiled. “Well I definitely don’t want to do that.” he whispered back and pressed his lips fully against Sirius’ before his tongue darted out to follow the curve of Sirius’ lower lip.

Sirius made a low noise in the back of his throat and opened his mouth allowing Remus entrance, the heat building between them as they kissed each other with growing fervour.

Eventually the need for oxygen made them break apart gasping and Sirius began to kiss his way along Remus’ jaw, his lips leaving a trail of fire in their wake. He moved backwards slightly to make his position a bit more comfortable and finally encountered Remus’ erection. Sirius froze in place for a split second but as he stared at Remus biting his lip to try and hold in a moan at the movement Remus saw his eyes darken with need.

He slithered down Remus’ body until he was lying fully on top of him and his own erection was pushed against Remus’. They both groaned loudly at the sensation and Sirius plunged his hands into Remus’ hair before smashing their lips together again. The kiss was fierce and desperate as they rocked against each other; Remus’ head spinning from the pleasure shooting through him.

It felt like lightening was dancing along his skin as he arched up trying to get closer to Sirius, his hands clinging to the back of Sirius’ shoulders so tightly that he didn’t think he’d ever be able to let go. Sirius was holding onto him just as fiercely. One of his hands had snaked down to wrap around Remus’ waist, pulling him hard against his body and he kept breathing Remus’ name over and over in an awe filled voice.

The sensation climbed higher and higher and their movements grew more erratic as they both got closer to the edge, then with a harsh cry Sirius stiffened against him and Remus felt warmth spread across the bottom of his stomach before his world whited out and he came with Sirius’ name on his lips.

Sirius rolled off him and flopped onto the bed next to Remus, both of them trying to catch their breath.

“So that was sex.” Remus said, almost to himself in a shocked voice. It was so much better than he’d read about.

Sirius gave a breathless laugh. “Maybe next time we’ll even manage to get our clothes off.” He tugged at the bottom of Remus’ t-shirt.

Remus smiled. “Next time?” He sat up and reached for his wand and cast a Scougify over the both of them to get rid of the mess they’d made of their pyjamas.

Sirius looked at him and returned the smile. “Well I figure you need the practice to reach my sex god-like status.” His gray eyes glittered with mischief.

“Are you saying that I wasn’t very good, Mr Black?” Remus put on a mock indignant tone.

Sirius pretended to think about it. “I’m not sure I can give an adequate answer after just one go. We’d probably need to try it again.” He leered at Remus comically.

“Not tonight we’re not.” snorted Remus, rolling onto his side to face Sirius properly.

“Soon though?” Sirius asked softly, reaching out to tangle his hand with Remus’.

“Yes, soon.” Remus agreed.

****

“Get back here, you bastards!”

The yell echoed up the stairs and Remus sighed to himself. There were only two things that he could think of that would make Frank Longbottom shout like that and he gave another sigh as both of those things came barrelling into the room, looked around wildly and then dived, as one, behind the curtains of the nearest bed. A moment later a red-faced Longbottom appeared in the doorway. At least Remus assumed he was red-faced, but it was a little hard to tell as he was, in fact, red all over. From the tips of his previously blonde hair to the bottom of his shoes Frank Longbottom was a fantastic shade of scarlet.

Remus blinked at him a couple of times and then, without a word, raised his arm to point at the curtained bed. Longbottom nodded at him in thanks and then dived behind the curtains himself. There was a shout of _“Got you!”_ followed by _“Lupin, you traitor!”_ and a whimper that sounded a lot like _“Not the face!”_ before everything behind the curtains descended into the general scuffle sounds of punches and yelps.

“What’s going on?” Remus glanced back to the door to see Peter peering curiously into the room.

“James and Sirius dyed Frank red. He’s not taking it well.” Remus replied dryly.

“Huh!” Peter shrugged and then joined Remus on his bed.

He handed Remus one of the small stack of biscuits he’d presumably just stolen from the school kitchens and they both settled in to stare at the bed opposite. The fight noises continued and occasionally an arm or a leg would appear from within the folds of the material. It sort of reminded Remus of the old muggle cartoons he’d watched as a child where fights were generally hidden inside a cloud of dust.

At one point a pair of glasses flew out from the bed and skittered across the floor. Remus and Peter watched its progression silently before turning their attention back to the curtains again in time to see a red foot poke out; apparently Frank had somehow managed to lose both a shoe and sock in the melee.

Eventually the noises ceased and Frank emerged with a victorious smirk and some rather violent swelling to the side of his already round face, making him resemble a tomato. He straightened his ripped robes, grimacing at the sight of his bright red hands.

“Any suggestions?” he asked, glancing at Peter and Remus whilst waggling his hands in front of him.

Peter scrunched up his face in thought. “Err...don’t wear anything orange? It will clash.”

Frank snorted then left the room, shaking his head and muttering about _‘Potter and his band of bloody nutters’_.

“Think they’re dead?” Peter asked Remus, nodding towards the other bed.

“We’re not that lucky.” Remus stood up and went to his trunk to fetch his first aid kit and a couple of pain potions as the pitiful groans started right on cue.

“You two bastards were no bloody help!” James muttered as he staggered into view, nose bleeding and his school tie twisted up over his ear.

He tried to glare at Remus and Peter but, as he’d lost his glasses in the altercation, he just ended up squinting in their general direction. Peter helpfully picked the glasses up off the floor and tossed them to him then winced as they bounced off James’ forehead and landed back on the floor again.

“Oh, you seemed to be doing a pretty fine job getting beaten up all by yourselves actually.” Remus noted as he handed James one of the potions and quickly checked to see if he had any nasty cuts that needed healing before moving over to check on the unusually quiet Sirius.

He found him sprawled across his bed in a typically dramatic fashion. A bruise was already starting to form around Sirius’ left eye and he was clutching a red shoe to his chest. As the curtains opened his eyes slid over to Remus and his bottom lip pouted out.

“Oh Merlin, could you look any more pathetic?” Remus muttered, but his lips twitched up on one side taking the sting out of his words.

“He hit me, Moony. In my own dorm...on my own bed. In my sanctuary from the world.” Sirius said plaintively, his lip pouting out even more.

“He hit me too.” James chorused from the spot on the floor where he’d collapsed but Sirius just waved his hand dismissively at him. His own injuries were obviously much more grievous.

Remus shook his head as he perched on the edge of Sirius’ bed. “Well you did make him look like a piece of fruit...”

Sirius stopped pouting and instead looked confused. “Huh?”

“He looked like a tomato. You know with his head and everything.” Remus drew a circle in the air around his own face to illustrate the roundness.

“Tomatoes are vegetables.” The heap on the floor previously known as James said.

“That’s a common misconception,” Remus told him, “They’re actually a fruit.”

James sat up. “Then why aren’t they served as dessert like other fruit? Why are they always with vegetables?”

“I hate vegetables,” Peter piped up as he took a bite of another biscuit, “Don’t know why my mother keeps making me eat them.”

James looked slightly disgusted at the sight of the half chewed food in Peter’s mouth and then dropped his eyes pointedly to Peter’s stomach. “I don’t know either, it’s a complete mystery.”

“Hey! The ladies love a guy with a bit more meat on them, I’ll have you know,” Peter threw a pillow at James.”I don’t need to live on tomatoes and all that stuff.”

“Shut up!” Sirius suddenly yelled, “Will you all stop talking about vegetables...?”

“Fruit.” interjected the other three boys in unison.

“...whatever! And start focusing on my pain and suffering! And what retribution should be doled out for said pain and suffering.”

“Oh no, no retribution!” Remus gave Sirius a hard look. “You’ve done enough to Frank, don’t you think? Why did you hex him anyway? I thought you both liked him.”

“We didn’t mean to. He was just in the wrong place at the wrong time,” Sirius muttered, “No need to resort to fisty-cuffs.” The pouty lip was definitely back in effect again.

James managed to pull himself off the floor with a groan and flopped onto his bed instead. “We were experimenting with the spell so we could cast it on some Slytherins tomorrow. It was supposed to make them flash red and gold.”

“Brilliant!” exclaimed Peter.

“Of course it’s brilliant! But we can’t use it now because everyone will know that it was us!” Sirius sulked.

Remus snorted in amusement. “Do you honestly believe that they wouldn’t have known it was you anyway?”

“Well, it does have the air of genius about it...so probably not.” James smirked. “We’ll just have to wait until everyone’s forgotten about Longbottom and use it then.”

“But what are we going to do to the Slytherins tomorrow?” Sirius whined.

Peter looked confused. “Why? What’s tomorrow?”

“Thursday.” James shrugged.

“You three do realise that we’ve got OWLs coming up, right?” Remus pointed out, sure that they should all be revising by now and not just him but this was met with a chorus of groans and various items thrown at him.

“No, Moony, all talk of OWLs is hereby banned in this room.” James proclaimed and he then dragged himself to the ‘big box of prank essentials’ to look for something else they could use the next day.

Remus rolled his eyes as Peter walked over to join James, it was a wonder they passed any exams. At a tug on his sleeve he turned to look at Sirius who was flashing big puppy dog eyes at him. “My eye hurts, Moony.”

Remus shook his head at the pitiful sight. “It’s your own fault really. You know better than to practice spells with other people around.”

Sirius huffed. “I thought you’d be nicer to me now.”

“I’ve told you before, Sirius. I’m not a girl.”

Crossing his arms, Sirius glared at Remus for a moment before he started to smirk. “Want to go somewhere and prove that?” He waggled his eyebrows at Remus who chuckled quietly as he checked that James and Peter weren’t listening to them.

“I can’t, I’m patrolling tonight,” Remus told him regretfully, “I should be going now, actually.”

“Fine,” Sirius sighed, “I’ll wait up for you.”

Remus smiled at him and then grabbed his robes before leaving to start his patrols. Unfortunately he was paired with Paxton Parkinson and had to spend the entire night grinding his teeth as Parkinson loudly expressed his opinion on muggle borns and kept talking about some crackpot that he pompously referred to as _the Dark Lord_. By the time he made it back to the Gryffindor Tower Remus was all for using James and Sirius’ spell on the Slytherins after all, in the hope that it would make them all hide in their dungeon far away from Remus until the red wore off.

He walked into the dorm room and smiled to see the light behind Sirius’ curtains, sure that Sirius would be able to take his mind off stupid Slytherins who should just shut the hell up. After quickly making sure that James and Peter were sleeping, he pushed aside the curtain only to be confronted with the sight of Sirius lying on his back, his mouth open and fast asleep. His wand was next to him and still glowing with the Lumos spell. Remus sighed, picked up the wand and put it out before placing it on Sirius’ bedside table. Then he headed to his own bed for a proper night’s sleep, without any fun interruptions.


	13. Chapter 13

Sirius was completely torn between feeling frustrated and bouncing in excitement. He was frustrated because between James’ essential pranking plans, the increased homework load and Remus spending all of his spare time revising already, he hadn’t gotten to have any time alone with Remus since that amazing night the previous week. His face took on a kind of dopey smile as he thought about it again, causing James to smack him across the back of his head and tell him to “For Merlin’s sake concentrate” on the potion they were brewing and Remus to glance up from his own potion and smirk at him. _Bastard._

On the other hand, it was almost the Christmas holidays and he was staying at Hogwarts for it. It had been Peter’s idea, well not so much idea more dreamily talking about how Christmas dinner cooked by the school’s house elves would be so much nicer than his grandmother’s cooking. As Peter wistfully listed all the delicious food he imagined they would get, James and Sirius had looked at each other over his head and grinned.

“There’d be no one here...” started James.

“We’d practically have the castle to ourselves...” agreed Sirius.

“We could go exploring with no interruptions...”

“And build the world’s biggest snow fort without anyone trying to knock it down...”

“No!” said Remus, glancing up from his Arthimancy notes. “No way!”

“...and Christmas pudding covered in custard; and trifle; and sausages wrapped in bacon; and...wait, what are _you_ all talking about?” Peter realised that there was a conversation going on around him.

“Peter, my boy,” James flung an arm around Peter’s shoulders, “you’ve come up with your best idea yet.”

Peter looked very confused but nodded anyway.

Sirius climbed up onto one of the common room chairs and loudly announced, “The Marauders are spending Christmas at Hogwarts!”

Remus dropped his head into his hands while Peter looked shocked and yet simultaneously trying to look like that had been his plan the entire time.

“Thank Merlin I’m going home then.” The sound of Lily’s voice floated across from the corner where she was sitting.

“Why the hell should we care?”

“Shut up and sit back down, Black!”

Sirius made a rude gesture to all the catcallers and climbed back down from the chair, ducking a book as he did so. He suspected that it had been thrown by Longbottom who was still a bit put out over the whole turning him red thing since apparently his girlfriend, Alice, had laughed for fifteen minutes straight when she’d seen him.

“Come on, Moony. It’ll be fun,” he said to Remus who was still hiding his face in despair, “Just think you’ll have the library all to yourself.”

Remus raised his head. “Like you’ll let me go to the library. You’ll spend the entire time dragging me around and getting me involved in ridiculous schemes when I should be revising.”

“Revising schmising,” scoffed James, “It’s the holidays!”

Remus pointed at James as if he’d just proven his point for him but Sirius personally agreed with James. The OWLs were months away.

“It’ll be a great time for us all to work on...you know...the secret project,” Sirius lowered his voice and looked at Remus meaningfully, “We’re getting really close. If we keep practising we may be able to do it soon.”

It was true, all three boys had managed to complete the meditation exercises and they had finally managed to steal the last ingredient from Slughorn’s potions cupboard by utilising Remus’ uncanny ability for exploding stuff in lessons and James’ invisibility cloak.

Remus frowned at him and Sirius could tell he was wavering at that, the memory of the last full moon still hovering over them both. “But my parents will want me home.” Remus tried.

“Which is where the OWLs actually come in useful,” James said, “tell them you have to revise and it’ll be easier when there are no distractions.”

Remus rolled his eyes at the ‘no distractions’ part. Sirius meanwhile slouched down in his chair and shifted slightly, outwardly giving off an air of nonchalance; whereas really he’d done it so that he could deliberately press his leg up against Remus’.

He smiled as he watched a slight blush rise up Remus’ face at the contact and raised an eyebrow at him, trying to convey exactly the type of fun they could have together in a nearly empty school with lots of time on their hands.

“Okay, fine,” Remus didn’t take his eyes from Sirius’, “but you have to let me do at least a little studying.”

So now Sirius was faced with the first Christmas that he’d actually looked forward to since the first year, when he’d foolishly believed that his parents would welcome him back with open arms no matter what house he’d been sorted into. He didn’t have to go to stupid parties trying to find a wife. He didn’t have spend Christmas dinner surrounded by disapproving relatives sprouting their pureblood nonsense. He wouldn’t have to count down the minutes until he could escape to his room and lock himself away from his increasingly drunk and vicious family.

Instead he’d have fun trying to find new tunnels and secret passageways in the castle. He’d have James and some sort of grand plan, because there was no way the two of them could get through a Christmas together without at least a bit of mischief. He’d have Peter, who they’d no doubt have to roll back to the Gryffindor Tower after Christmas dinner. And he’d have Remus.

Sirius lifted his head from his potion to smile over at Remus and it was a good thing he did. His hand darted out and grabbed Remus’ wrist before he could drop the unicorn hair he was holding into his cauldron.

“One strand, Moony, not one bundle.”

“Oh...err, right.” Remus smiled sheepishly at him and then his eyes darkened slightly as Sirius brushed a finger over his pulse point before dropping his wrist.

This was going to be a great Christmas!

****

Unfortunately it didn’t seem like such a great Christmas by the day before Christmas Eve. Sure, they’d found two new passageways already and some strange room that Sirius swore hadn’t been there before, but his plan to spend the holidays showing Remus just how much of a sex god he really was had hit a snag.

Because there were only a handful of students left in the school, there was no one else to distract James and Peter which meant that they were _always around_. Also the fact that there were no lessons meant that they could all stay up as late as they liked. A fact that James in particular was keen to exploit and by the time he went to sleep, Remus and Sirius were both too tired to get up to anything more than a sleepy snog before returning to their respective beds.

Of course now that he’d finally managed to get rid of James and Peter, by suggesting they sneak to Hogsmeade via one of the new tunnels and try to talk the owner of the Hog’s Head into selling them some firewhiskey, he’d returned to the dorm room to find it completely empty of anything that even remotely resembled Remus Lupin. Giving a huge put-upon sigh, he dragged himself out of the common room and headed to the library which was where Remus was sure to be hiding out.

Despite his grumpiness, Sirius had to admit that the castle looked beautiful as he walked through the corridors. There were huge garlands hung everywhere twinkling with tiny fairies who happily danced along the branches, no doubt happy to be inside and away from the snow. The portraits were all in a festive mood and called out Christmas greetings as Sirius walked by. As he passed though one corridor he noticed that Claron the Cunning had appeared in a painting of The Chaste Maidens of Chichester and was busy plying all three giggling ladies with glasses of wine. He spotted Sirius looking and tipped him a sly wink which Sirius laughingly returned.

Reaching the library Sirius found their usual table empty but covered in Remus’ notes so he wandered around the stacks until he found Remus perusing the advanced charms section.

“You know that Charms is your best subject, right?” Sirius said as he picked up a dusty copy of ‘Charms to Befuddle and Bemuse’. “What do you need to revise that for?”

Remus didn’t look away from the shelf he was currently running his finger along. “Actually Defence Against the Dark Arts is my best subject and I’ll be revising that too.”

“I could think of better things for you to study.” Sirius pointed out and Remus laughed.

“That’s awful, Sirius. Do these lines usually work for you?” he asked.

Sirius shrugged. “Usually my surname works for me.” He put the book back down and moved up close behind Remus. “James and Peter are in Hogsmeade for a few hours.” he murmured into Remus’ ear.

Remus turned in place. “Oh really?” he smirked and then suddenly looked torn. “I really need to get this revision done now that I’m here.”

“Who says we have to leave?” Sirius said, placing his hands on the shelf behind Remus on either side of his head.

Remus looked aghast at the idea of defiling his sacred place but then Sirius slid his leg between Remus’ and pressed up. Remus’ eyes fluttered shut with a groan and his head fell back against the shelf with a thud.

Sirius thought that may be the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen and couldn’t resist ducking his head to run his tongue up the silky skin of Remus’ exposed neck.

“Oh Merlin, we can’t do this here.” Remus protested even as he pulled Sirius closer.

Sirius chuckled against his throat, “No one will know.”

“I’ll know,” Remus gasped as one of Sirius’ hands reached down and slid between them, “I’ll never be able to study in here again.”

As things were just getting interesting a very cold draught suddenly washed over the pair of them and Remus turned his head in the direction it came from. “What was that?”

“Don’t know. Don’t care.” Sirius muttered as he tried to pull Remus close again, but the moment had been broken and Remus stepped to one side with a regretful smile.

Sirius closed his eyes and growled in frustration.

Remus patted him on the shoulder and gave a quiet laugh. “I can’t believe you tried to seduce me in the library.”

“I figured the books would turn you on,” Sirius shot back but gave a rueful smile, “It was working too, before that weird gust of wind.” He walked to the end of the row and studied the wall. “There’s not even a window over here that it could’ve come from.”

Remus joined him by the wall and run his hand over the stone. “No, I don’t think this is an exterior wall so there shouldn’t be any draught coming through from outside.”

“It’s got to be a tunnel or something then.” Sirius grinned, always happy to find a new secret way around the castle. He took out his wand and started tapping at random bricks while Remus wandered away to continue his revision.

Sirius couldn’t pick up on any residual magic around the wall indicating that a spell needed to be used to open it and the sconces on the wall wouldn’t move so they weren’t a handle but the draught still appeared at random moments so there was a gap in the wall somewhere. Unable to find it, he abandoned the wall and started to question a nearby portrait instead. It was only when Remus appeared at his side sometime later with all his books and notes packed away into his bag that Sirius realised how long he’d been there.

“Norvell, here, says that he has no idea if there’s a passageway behind the wall or not but he’s only been here for a hundred years or so.” Sirius told him.

The portrait of Norvell of Nowhere nodded remorsefully. “I’m afraid that I was moved here from the third floor corridor after some completely unfounded rumours about myself and the portrait of The Widow Percille,” he gave Remus a stern look, “ _Completely Unfounded._ ”

“Of course, sir,” Remus assured him, “we would never believe rumours about a gentleman of your stature.”

The portrait seemed placated at that and Remus and Sirius headed back to study the wall again. “There’s definitely something behind there, I just can’t tell how to get to it.” Sirius sighed.

Remus looked thoughtful. “Do you think it needs a password?”

“Maybe...” Sirius moved closer to the wall, “but this stone sticks out a little further than the others. I’ve tried pushing it and it won’t budge.”

Remus moved closer too. “Well if Norvell’s right then it hasn’t been opened in over a hundred years, it could be a bit stuck from lack of use.” He dropped his bag on the floor. “Lets both try pushing it at the same time.”

Sirius put his hands on one side of the stone while Remus placed his hands on the other. They both pushed hard and the stone moved a tiny bit backwards.

“Put your back into it, Moony.” Sirius nudged Remus’ shoulder with his own and they both pushed the stone again with all their weight against it.

This time the stone slid all the way in with a click and the wall suddenly swung away from them. The two boys unbalanced and fell into the dark space, landing on a cold hard floor.

“Shit!” Sirius yelled as he saw the door begin to close again. He leapt to his feet and tried to reach it in time but the door’s momentum was too quick and it shut before he got there, plunging them into total darkness.


	14. Chapter 14

“Lumos.” Remus muttered and the dim light revealed that they were in a small and dusty room with another, wooden, door on the opposite wall.

Sirius was studying the door that they just fell through but there wasn’t even a protruding stone they could push from this side to open it again.

“I guess we should see what’s behind the other door.” Remus walked over and pulled at the wooden door which opened easily and revealed a corridor beyond it. He watched the cobwebs move in a breeze and said, “This is definitely where the draught is coming from. I think it might lead to somewhere outside.”

“Let’s investigate then, shall we?” Sirius lit his own wand and Remus’ breath hitched as the other boy deliberately brushed up against him as he pushed past.

“Bastard.” he muttered, earning a chuckle from Sirius.

They made their way along the passageway which was pretty unspectacular as corridors went. There were no doors leading off it or even torches on the walls and it seemed to go on for ages. Not that that bothered Sirius who was humming Christmas songs as they walked along. Remus had to smile; there was nothing that cheered Sirius up quite like exploring the castle, which was why James usually suggested doing just that whenever Sirius was in one of his notoriously bad moods.

“It’s definitely getting colder,” Sirius told him happily, “I think you’re right about it heading outside, you know. I wonder if...”

Remus didn’t get to find out what Sirius wondered as the floor suddenly disappeared from below their feet. Remus gave a loud yell before he discovered that they were on some sort of slide rather than just falling. _Who put a slide in a castle?_ he thought before realising it was probably the same crazy person who thought moving staircases would be a good idea.

Sirius was whooping and generally acting as if he was on the best fairground ride ever until they were finally deposited in a tangled heap in another small room.

“That was brilliant!” crowed Sirius, “I can’t wait to show James!”

Remus managed to pull himself carefully to his feet, wincing at the number of bruises he’d managed to accumulate on the unexpected ride. “I’d warn him about the slide first. It’s probably more fun if you don’t just fall down it.”

“But that would spoil the surprise.” Sirius pointed out and jumped to his feet with no problems at all.

Remus glared at him and wondered, not for the first time, if Sirius had some sort of permanent cushioning charm around him. It would certainly explain how he never got injured when they did this sort of thing while the other three did.

“Come over here and help me with this door will you, Moony?” Sirius was pushing against another stone door with his shoulder.

Remus sighed any went over to join him, pushing his own weight against it too. It wouldn’t move at all. He ran his fingers around the edge of the door looking for any hinges that may have rusted over but he couldn’t find any or anything that may work as a handle.

“Okay.” Sirius tapped his fingers against the door. “Maybe _this_ one opens with magic.”

Remus moved back and let Sirius run a few of the normal checks over the door. Leaning against the wall he took the time to appreciate the play of muscles under Sirius’ shirt as he worked, remembering the feel of those muscles under his hands.

Sirius turned around. “It’s the same as the other door. Nothing to indicate any...what?” he broke off at the look on Remus’ face.

Remus didn’t answer. Instead he pushed off the wall, covered the few strides to Sirius and cupped his face in his hands before kissing him soundly. Sirius immediately started kissing him back and they both tumbled to the floor, without breaking apart.

“Okay I _really_ like this tunnel!” Sirius gasped as the need to breathe got to be too much and Remus pulled back.

“Mmhmm.” Remus agreed as he nuzzled his way down Sirius’ neck, stopping to suck on his pulse.

He slid his hands up under the hem of Sirius’ shirt and stroked them across his stomach while Sirius hooked his leg around the back of Remus’ thighs and pulled him in closer.

“Oh hullo, I thought I heard some noise in here!”

The boys quickly jumped apart and stared at Nearly Headless Nick, who had just floated through the wall.

“It’s been a while since anyone found this passageway. Well done, both of you.” He smiled with pride at the two Gryffindors. “That slide does come as a bit of a surprise doesn’t it?” he laughed, obviously believing that was the reason they were both laying on the floor.

Remus recovered first and cleared his throat as he sat up. “Actually, Sir Nicholas, we seem to be a little stuck. We can’t get the door to open, maybe because it hasn’t been used in so long.”

“Ah! That is a bit of a problem,” The ghost agreed, looking at the door and then at the slide which would be impossible to climb back up, “I tell you what, why don’t I go and ask some of the other ghosts? One of them is bound to remember how to get out and if there isn’t a trick to it, we can perhaps get Hagrid to open the door from the other side.”

“That would be great, Sir Nick.” Sirius told him and then the ghost disappeared through the wall again. “This school is conspiring against us, I swear.” Sirius groaned as he flopped back onto the ground.

Remus gave a murmur of agreement and moved to lean back against the wall to wait, neither one of them in the mood to start anything up again when a crowd of ghosts could pop through the wall at any moment.

One failed game of I Spy - _“There’s nothing in here except cobwebs and dust, Sirius.”_ , the dirty version of ‘On The First Day of Christmas’ that James and Sirius had made up in its entirety and a furious argument over which was the better race in The Hobbit; hobbits or dwarves, later and Sir Nicholas finally reappeared.

“Sorry to keep you waiting, boys,” Sir Nicholas said, “But none of the ghosts could remember how to open the door. So we checked with the portraits and Lady Violet seemed quite knowledgeable about the passageway. Apparently the doors at either end both need a password to open from the inside; _Patefacio_. Also, if you tap the slide with your wand five times and say _Macula_ then it will turn into steps.”

“Fantastic. Thanks, Sir Nick.” Sirius said, causing the ghost to beam at them and glow a little brighter.

Remus stood up as Sirius tried out the password and the door swung open, letting in a rush of frigid air. Shivering, they both stuck their heads of the doorway to see that it opened onto the back of the castle near the lake.

“Handy.” Remus commented, then went back to the slide and began tapping it with his wand.

“What are you doing?” Sirius asked watching Remus say the password and steps appear where the slide had been.

Remus sighed, “I left my bag in the library; it’s got all my notes in it.” Then he began to climb the very, very, long stairway.

****

Christmas Eve began with hangovers for all the Marauders. It turned out that the owner of the Hog’s Head had been absent when James and Peter got there and James had actually somehow managed to charm the new and inexperienced barmaid into selling them a couple of bottles of firewhiskey. Once Remus and Sirius had finally made it back to the dorm James had decided that the discovery of the new tunnel needed to be celebrated and opened the first bottle.

It had tasted foul and Sirius couldn’t believe that people drunk the stuff all the time. Of course he had been unwilling to admit this in front of the other boys so he knocked back his first glass and demanded James pour him another. By the time he was on his fourth glass it didn’t actually taste that bad anymore. Of course, by the time he was on his fourth glass he was also singing at the top of his voice.

The last thing he remembered was bouncing on his bed, announcing that he was ready to try the animagus spell and eating his portion of the ingredients before Remus and James jumped on top of him to stop him eating everyone else’s portions too. He groaned at that memory, it was going to take ages to gather all those ingredients again. Then he groaned a second time as the first groan made his head hurt.

He dragged himself out of bed and staggered into the bathroom to splash water on his face, catching sight of himself in the mirror and wondering why the hell he was wearing his old quidditch outfit. He opened the bathroom door to leave but was pushed out of the way as Peter barrelled into the room and threw up in the toilet.

The two of them stayed where they were for a long moment, with Peter collapsed on the floor and Sirius using the counter to hold himself up.

“You know...” Sirius started slowly, “I’ll bet the seventh years have some hangover potions in their dorm somewhere.”

“Probably...” Peter agreed.

So by the time the other two woke up, Sirius and Peter had successfully raided both the seventh and sixth year dorms for four bottles of potion and were feeling a lot perkier.

Remus drank the bottle Sirius had given him with a grimace but gave him a huge smile when the potion began to work and fell back onto the bed with a sigh of relief. At that moment there was nothing Sirius wanted to do more than climb in that bed with him and get Remus to give him that smile again, or maybe one of those little breathy moans that Sirius was quickly becoming addicted to.

“So what’s the plan for today, chaps?” James disturbed Sirius’ thoughts and brought him back to the present.

“Don’t care.” Sirius muttered grumpily as he was faced with the prospect of another day without being able to touch Remus because James and Peter were around.

Remus gave Sirius a look that said he understood exactly how Sirius felt as the other two began making a list of all the stuff they had yet to do. Finally it was decided that they should build their giant snow fort so all four boys bundled up in as many layers as they could and, after a huge breakfast, headed out into the snow covered grounds.

The first hour was spent in an almighty shouting match as they each tried to argue their own methods for building the fort. They eventually decided on a mixture of James and Remus’ ideas and, although he sulked a bit at first, Sirius had to admit that it worked quite well. Peter and Remus used a spell to mold the snow into blocks and then they levitated them to Sirius and James who built them into a wall, packing more snow into the gaps to strengthen it.

By the time the fort was about three feet high, they had gathered an audience of two Hufflepuff second years, a Ravenclaw first year and three Ravenclaw third years. After a quick meeting the Marauders decided to put them all to work with Remus showing the second years how to make the blocks, Peter and the very competitive first year having a race to see who could levitate the blocks the furthest and the third years helping James and Sirius with the actual building.

They all had a break for lunch, with the kids joining the Marauders at the Gryffindor table with much excitement and then they headed back out to find Dumbledore and Professor Flitwick inspecting the fort, both of them eager to join in with the building.

An hour or so after lunch, Sirius began to feel a bit funny and announced he was taking a little break. He stood to one side and watched the entire group completely immersed in what they were doing. The fort was now high enough that Hagrid had been roped in to help build the top of the external wall along with Flitwick, who was being levitated by Dumbledore, because the rest of them weren’t tall enough. James and the third years were now building a platform inside that they would be able to stand on to look out over the wall.

“We need some flags,” Remus commented as he came to stand next to Sirius, “That’s what they put on proper forts.”

“We can grab a few from the Great Hall,” suggested Sirius, “I’ll go do that now actually. I think the cold’s affecting me so it’ll be nice to get warm for a couple of minutes.”

He turned to head back to the castle but suddenly felt lightheaded and stumbled. Remus grabbed his arm to steady him and, even through several layers of clothing, his touch shot sparks through Sirius. They looked at each other as that magic crackled on the air again.

“I could help you,” Remus murmured, “with the flags.”

Sirius smirked and nodded his head.

“Oi, you two! Why aren’t you working like the rest of us?” James suddenly shouted at them and Remus smoothly dropped Sirius’ arm and stepped away.

Sirius would quite cheerfully have hit James at that point. “We’re going to get some flags for the fort.” he yelled back, receiving a chorus of cheers from the kids and Dumbledore.

“That doesn’t need two of you,” James answered, “Sirius, you go. Remus, we need more blocks.”

Remus closed his eyes and muttered a prayer for Merlin to give him strength and then walked back to the fort.

Sirius managed to get hold of the flags, two Gryffindor and one each of Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw and by the time he’d angrily stomped all the way back to the fort it had been finished. The flags were levitated onto each corner and then a quick snowball fight began, which the professors gracefully bowed out of but Hagrid got ambushed as he tried to escape with them.

It was getting dark when the Marauders made it back to the dorms, all of them wet and cold. There was an immediate fight over who got to use the shower first. Sirius was still stewing over the constant interruptions he and Remus had been having and so wasn’t concentrating properly. He ended up getting the last spot with James first, then Peter and then Remus.

As he leaned on the wall awaiting his turn he thought about how James would probably want to stay up late that night as well and then the next day was Christmas Day so the chances of getting alone time was going to be impossible. In fact, Sirius couldn’t see any point over the next few days where he could drag Remus away for an hour or so.

Finally, when Remus was using the shower and Sirius heard James and Peter making plans for the rest of the night, he exploded.

“Get out!” He shouted.

Then, when the other two looked at him in shock, he yelled it again, “Get out! Get out! Get out!”

“Err...Sirius...?” James started but Sirius just yelled over him.

“No! No talking! No drinking! No pranks! You two are going to leave and stay away for a few hours and I am going to seduce Moony with no interruptions, dammit!” He stopped shouting and was met with silence as James and Peter stared at him open mouthed.

Then a sly smirk slowly appeared on James’ face. “A few hours? Think a lot of yourself don’t you, Black?”

“W...what?” stammered Peter. “Seduce? Moony?” His voice reached a peculiarly high pitch.

James grabbed Peter by the back of the neck and ushered him towards the door. “Come on, Pete; let’s go raid the kitchens while I’ll explain. You see, when a man and a werewolf love each other very much...”

James’ voice drifted away as they left and Sirius stayed standing where he was for a moment. He’d finally gotten rid of the other two so that was one obstacle out of the way. It was, however, possible that Remus could decide that he needed to study again so Sirius needed to do something to stop him being able to leave the room. He marched across the room, threw open a trunk and gathering all the trousers in his arms went over to the window and flung them out.

“Um...Sirius? What are you doing?”

Sirius spun around to see Remus standing outside the bathroom door looking confused - and wet and delicious and wearing only a towel - but mostly confused.

“I’ve got rid of James and Peter and now I’m throwing away all your trousers so you can’t leave and we can have sex.” Sirius informed him.

Remus’ mouth twitched the way it did when he was trying to hold in a smile. “That’s very nice, Sirius, but I had no plans to leave. Also, those were James’ trousers.”

He pointed to the trunk which clearly sat at the bottom of James’ bed and not Remus’.

“Ah!”

This time Remus didn’t try to hold in his smile as he walked across the room and stroked a hand over Sirius’ jaw. “How did you get rid of James and Peter?”

Sirius cleared his throat uncomfortably. “I...err...told them to get out so I could seduce you...”

Remus froze for a moment and then burst out laughing. “Oh, I wish I could’ve seen their faces.”

Sirius grinned, glad that Remus wasn’t angry with him for telling the other two about them, and leaned in to kiss him. Remus opened his mouth eagerly and Sirius pressed closer until a sharp pain in his stomach caused him to stagger back.

“Sirius?” Remus tried to help him over to one of the beds but it hurt too much to walk so Sirius lowered himself to the floor instead. “What’s wrong?”

Sirius shook his head. “I don’t know. I’ve been feeling funny all day.”

“I’ll go and get Poppy. Maybe you’ve eaten something bad and it...” Remus’ voice trailed off for a second and then he asked, “Sirius? Do I remember you eating the spell ingredients last night or was that a really weird alcohol fuelled dream?”

Sirius’ eyes widened. “Oh shit!” He’d forgotten about that in all the hangover illness and then the snow fort shenanigans. “But that won’t do anything without the rest of the spell will it?”

Remus shook his head looking panicky. “I don’t know, they’re still _magic_ ingredients. Oh god, oh god! The spell’s going to go wrong and you’re going to end up as some monkey man hybrid.”

Sirius closed his eyes and blocked out Remus’ thoroughly unhelpful ramblings. He thought about the rest of the spell and what he had to do. He’d opened the path to his inner animal, he’d taken the spell ingredients...now he needed to chant the spell and concentrate on the inner animal as he did so.

He could do this; he’d spent an entire year specifically training for this moment with help from a couple of the best wizards alive.

He slowly began to speak the spell he’d memorised and focused all of his attention inward just as he did during the meditation. On the sixth time he said the spell he felt a warm wave of magic rush over him and his body moved in the strangest way; not painful, just strange. Remus gave a loud gasp and Sirius finally opened his eyes to see Remus staring at him in shock.

“What happened?” he asked, except all that came out was some barking.

 _I’m a dog?_

“You’re a dog!” breathed Remus in awe.

Sirius stared down at his paws and then spent a good ten minutes trying to see his own tail before he took a running leap at Remus, knocking him onto his back and enthusiastically licking his face.

“Get off me you daft mutt!” laughed Remus, pushing his face away, “Can you change back? You have to think about being human again.”

Sirius took a deep breath and thought about how it felt to walk on two legs and write with a quill and cast a spell with his wand. The wave came over him again, but less intense than before, and he was Sirius again; still laying on top of Remus who was grinning manically at him.

“Welcome back,” he said, “You know, I could’ve sworn you were going to be a monkey.”

Sirius laughed at that and then jumped to his feet, pulling Remus up after him. “I think that this calls for a celebration.”

“Not more firewhiskey.” Remus made a face.

Sirius started walking backwards to his bed, still holding onto Remus. “Actually I was thinking about a different kind of celebration right now.”

“You really do have some awful lines, you know that right?” Remus laughed as he pushed Sirius onto the bed and crawled up after him.

“Lucky you, you get to hear them all.” Sirius grinned.

Remus stretched himself out on top of Sirius and moved his face closer until his mouth was barely a hairs breadth from Sirius’s.

“Lucky me,” he agreed and then gently placed a kiss at each edge of Sirius’ mouth, “Shouldn’t we tell the other two that you’ve managed the spell? Albeit in your typically reckless fashion.”

“Moony!” Sirius groaned as he twined his hands in Remus’ hair, “If you stop now I’ll be forced to throw _all_ of _your_ clothes out of the window. We can tell them in the morning then they’ll have all day to try it themselves.”

Then he pulled Remus down into a proper kiss that he poured all his feelings into. His frustration of the past few weeks, his joy that he could finally spend full moons with him, how lucky he felt that he was the one that got to be with Remus.

Remus growled low in the back of his throat and impatiently started to tug off Sirius’ jumper and the t-shirt beneath and the vest under that.

“How many bloody layers are you wearing?” he asked irritably as he started on Sirius’ trousers.

“S’cold out.” Sirius mumbled then gasped as their bodies met, finally feeling skin on skin. That electricity that he felt last time was so much more intense and he ran his hands over Remus back and arms, tracing the thin silvery scars.

He arched off the bed when Remus nuzzled his neck and then gently bit the juncture where his neck met his shoulder. “Oh Merlin! Do that again!”

Remus chuckled against him and Sirius felt the vibrations down to his toes. Remus continued to tease and worry at that particular bit of skin on Sirius’ neck and Sirius felt a strong rush of arousal as he realised that Remus was marking him as his. Finally, Remus ran his tongue over the area to soothe it and raised his head, his eyes glittering with possessiveness and dark with lust, causing Sirius to give a full body shudder.

Slowly Remus began to kiss his way down to Sirius’ chest and Sirius began to pant as Remus moved lower and lower until he was suddenly encased in the wonderful hot and wet of Remus’ mouth. His hands flew to Remus’ hair and tangled in the still damp locks.

Technically, it wasn’t the best blowjob he’d ever had; it was sloppy and messy and inexpert but it was _Remus_. It was Remus learning his taste and his smell and marking him and that made everything perfect. His hand tightened in Remus’ hair, causing Remus to make a hum of protest and the reverberation pushed Sirius higher so suddenly that his climax took him completely by surprise.

It took Sirius a little while to come back to himself, by which time Remus had climbed back up the bed and was watching him with amusement.

“What’s your opinion of my performance this time, Mr Black?” he asked with a cheeky grin.

“Fucking fantastic!” Sirius exclaimed enthusiastically and then rolled on top Remus, swallowing his laughter with a deep kiss. He reached down between their bodies and it only took a few firm strokes before Remus was clinging to him and shuddering, his face completely open in a way that only Sirius got to see.

After a couple of quick spells, they lay tangled together behind closed curtains and under Sirius’ covers, happy, warm and drifting in that space just before sleep. It was difficult to remember the lonely and desperate boys that had started all of this a year previous.

Sirius was woken up early the next morning by someone banging about in the room and a yell of “Where the _bloody hell_ are all my trousers?”

Sirius felt Remus chuckle against his shoulder and then tighten the arm he had thrown across Sirius’ waist, burrowing in closer. Sirius gave a lazy smile, finally finding that contentment he’d been searching for. Then he closed his eyes and fell back to sleep.


End file.
